Harry UzumakiPotter
by Firedamaged
Summary: HP/N crossover, starts very dark, hence H/C genre, takes off after chapter 2. Funny, eccentric at times and kind of weird at others, basically crack whilst sticking mostly to canon personalities.   A/N: I own neither Naruto nor Harry Potter  A/N2: REVIEW!
1. Escaping the Dursleys

There wasn't much going for young Harry Potter in his life. He lived in a small, bug infested cupboard, spiders and rats his only friends. He was a small, skinny child, scrawny to the point of starvation. He was a freak, according to his relatives. He'd always end up doing something bad, something freakish and naughty, despite his best efforts not to, and they'd punish him for it. Currently he was nursing the results of his latest punishment. It was only a few bruises and a some small cuts, not as bad as last time, that broken bone had taken weeks to heal. He still thought it unfair, no matter how freaky he was, there was no way he could have had anything to do with Dudley's birthday cake exploding, he was in his cupboard at the time!

He was sitting upon his small, dingy bed, scratching at a scar on his chest whilst watching the fleas and spiders scurry about the room. He watched as one of the spiders began constructing a new web in between the fifth and sixth steps, the silken threads glinting with the reflected light seeping through the cracks in the doorway.

He'd often thought about running away. He'd even gotten as far as planning his escape several times but when he actually came to it, for some reason he never managed to go through with it. Even now the thoughts of running away wouldn't seem to come easily and left his brain feeling foggy and sluggish.

His thoughts turned sour as he contemplated his situation. He couldn't see many ways to escape his predicament, his teachers and the police all thought him a troublemaker and delinquent, they would rarely talk to him, let alone help him.

It was that day, the 30th of July 1986 that Harry Potter's thoughts first turned suicidal, the day before his sixth birthday.

It was over a year later before he eventually broke down into a deep enough depression to actually go through with it. He'd accepted that running away wasn't an option, his mind just wouldn't let him go through with it. He was once again sat upon his mattress under the stairs, listening to the quiet hum of the television and the not so quiet snores of his uncle Vernon, who had fallen asleep in the lounge again. His aunt Petunia had gone upstairs an hour ago with his cousin Dudley, who'd been banned from sleeping on the couch like his uncle when Petunia found she could no longer carry him up to his bed.

Slowly, making sure not to make any noise to wake his uncle, he opened his cupboard door and stepped out into the hallway. His relatives had forgotten to lock it after his afternoon's punishment, the bruises were still bright around his neck from his uncle's pudgy fingers and his breathing still came with a quiet wheeze.

Stealing a quick look in on the snoring man, Harry stealthily made his way into the kitchen.

Looking around he quickly spotted his aunt's new set of stainless steel knives in their wooden block. He made his way towards them before a thought struck him and he instead turned towards the refrigerator, once more scratching at the scar on his chest. It had become a habit of his lately. He didn't remember where the scar came from, but he knew it had appeared the day after his last attempt at running away from the house. He'd sworn he'd never call the place home again and stepped out the door. Oddly he couldn't remember the rest of the day, but had woken up later with the new scar and a fresh beating by his uncle evident on his body. It still hurt from time to time but then he'd just go to sleep and the next day it would be fine again. Looking up at the fridge he thought; _'One last meal. One proper meal before the end. That's what prisoners get isn't it?'_ With that he opened up the fridge door and gazed in wonder at all the food laid out before him. Most of his association with food had been the bacon and eggs he'd have to cook his relatives in the morning and the leftovers he could scrounge off of his aunt's plate, the other two rarely left anything if they could help it.

He filled up on all the ham and cold sausage he could. He grabbed some bread and cheese before downing a carton of orange juice. Finally done, full for the first time he could remember, but just to be sure he also picked up an apple from the bowl on the counter. Crunching on the juicy treat, he moved once more towards the knife block.

Slowly, with shaking hands, he reached up and pulled the largest one free from it's housing. Thinking slowly he remembered scenes from the brief tv and radio news articles he'd heard from his cupboard. Most people would cut into their wrists, whilst killers preferred the neck because it was quicker. Not wanting to spend any more time in the hell-hole of a house he was in he raised the knife to just beneath his chin. He paused, fear clouding his mind and halting his hand. Could he really do it? Could he take his own life? He certainly didn't have anything to live for and yet something stopped him. The thought of actually killing himself was reprehensible. He tried to steel himself and gripped the handle harder. After a minute, though, his arm sagged and he let out his held breath.

He couldn't do it.

As he stood there he suddenly felt something behind him and heard a ragged breath-like sound. Turning his blood ran cold as he saw his uncle, purple faced with fury at the sight of Harry stood there, the evidence of his late night snack on the counter and in the open fridge, holding a knife to his own throat.

"Why you cowardly, ungrateful little FREAK!" His uncle spat the words at him from across the kitchen. "How DARE you? How dare you eat the food I work so hard to provide for my family? How dare you stand their with my wife's knife in your hand you cowardly little shit? I'm going to break every one of those fingers and then we'll see about your punishment!" he stalked over to his nephew slowly.

Harry stood there paralysed by fear, he couldn't move as his uncle drew back a fist and punched him in the jaw. He spun around and crashed against the side of the kitchen counter. There was a sharp pain in his chest to match the dull throb of his head. He looked down to see the knife had stabbed a few millimetres into his chest, right on the solar plexus, right into his scar. Dazed as he was he thought he saw a strange blue glow reflected on the blade of the knife and the grating feeling of something hard where the knife was pressed.

Vernon paused for a second as his nephew was sprawled on the counter. He couldn't see the knife as it was under the freak's body. _'Oh well,'_ he thought, _'if he gets seriously damaged the old freak can just patch him up again like always.'_

With that final thought he brought his right fist back and smashed it into the boy's back, throwing all of his weight behind it. He heard a satisfying crunch that usually accompanied a broken bone, though slightly different than normal, more like shattered glass before everything started to go wrong.

Harry felt the impact and of his uncle's fist and felt the knife still pressed against his hand pierce through the hardness in his chest. Expecting the world to go black and resigning himself to his fate, finally getting the release he wanted, he was surprised when the world instead went blue.

There was a cracking and shattering sound before blue light shot out from his chest in a wave, knocking his uncle back and nearly blasting harry off his feet. The pain then grew intense as he felt several sharp slivers like knives pierce him from the inside out, emanating from the knife wound in his chest. Another blast of blue and the knife shot out of his chest and embedded itself in the wall, this time Harry was knocked off his feet but he didn't fall, and his uncle was sent sprawling out into the hallway as a wind began whipping around the inside of the kitchen.

Harry seemed suspended in mid air as another blast of blue energy shot out of him and the objects around him started to melt, fizz, crack and bubble as the wind grew stronger and whipped around his body, swirling everything around him in a maelstrom of chaos.

With the latest wave of blue energy Harry's mind felt afire. He threw his head back and screamed as memories forcibly flooded into his head. Memories of all of his escape attempts. Every time he'd run away and the old man with a stick would find him and bring him back, before telling him it was time to forget. Then came the memories of his last escape attempt. The old man had caught him and then said something to his uncle when he'd been brought back, something about failing wards, keeping him here and a different solution. The man had pulled out a small blue stone from beneath his cloak, at which his uncle nodded and told him to get on with it. The old man had leaned down and Harry couldn't move, only his eyes seemed to obey him as he watched the old man mumble some words and scratch a shape into the rock before pointing his stick at Harry's chest. Suddenly a gash appeared in his chest and the old man push the stone into him and muttered another word, which closed the skin over the small lump. "There we are now just to make it look like a scar and it's time to forget Harry." After that there were more memories, more recent ones of the old man coming back and removing the, now painful, stone from his chest and replacing it with a new one, before making him forget again. The first time he had muttered something about, "Sooner than I thought… even with the bindings… powerful too… should be very interesting."

As the memories ended a final double wave of blue burst from Harry's chest. The first healed his recent injuries, including the bruising and scars covering his body. The second erupted before withdrawing back into him and seemed to inflate him slightly. He filled out and no longer looked like a starved runaway, he didn't look like a perfectly healthy child either but the majority of his ills had been fixed. As the glow settled down and his skin regained its usual colour, the force that held him up disipated and he dropped the two foot back to the floor. The winds surrounding him died down and he looked around.

The kitchen and most of the ground floor was a shambles, all of the appliances seemed to have half melted, half exploded, the paint and wallpaper had been stripped from the walls, revealing bare bricks and mortar. Anything light and not tied down was strewn in a circle around him and most of the doors, pictures and other breakable objects were smashed beyond recognition, some things appeared to have vanished entirely and somehow a pair of rabbits, a fox and a small hamster had appeared inside the piles of wreckage. Looking out through the doorway he could see his uncle staring at him in a mixture of shock and outrage from his position sprawled at the base of the stairs. His aunt was stood on the stairs and looked like she was about to faint or be sick, he couldn't tell. Dudley was watching him from behind the banister with a mixture of fear and awe in his seven year old eyes.

Harry's eyes filled with hate as he stared at what remained of his so called family. As he frowned the staircase gave a groan before completely collapsing with a mighty smash, burying his uncle, dropping his aunt and cousin and destroying his 'room'.

He was shocked at the display of power, but before he could react in any way, he heard and felt a disturbance in the air behind him. Turning quickly, not wanting to be surprised and taken down by the old stick man he saw two people dressed in very strange clothes he didn't recognise.

The first spoke up quickly and his voice had an odd accent to it, the words sounded forced and not entirely natural as he said; "Peace, Harry Potter-san. We have no wish to harm you. We are here to take you away from this place."

His hair was a dirty-blonde, almost straw-like colour, tied back in a pony-tail and kept out of his eyes by a cloth strap with a metal plate on the front. He wore a black top with a green flak jacket and a flowing red sleeveless coat over the top and metal bracers on his forearms and the back of his hands. His long black trousers ended in sandals that left his toes and most of the top of his feet bare.

His companion looked half asleep as he spoke. He had black hair tied into a spiky bun and a short black goatee on his chin. His face was scarred and he dressed in a fishnet shirt, with the same green flak jacket but with a brown furry over coat, also sleeveless. He too wore long black trousers but had strange toe-less boots instead of sandals and spoke up when his companion had finished. "We've been tasked to take you away, your little display has dropped the wards so we could finally get to you. We need to hurry though, that troublesome Dumbledore will no doubt be on his way to brainwash you again and reseal your powers."

"Reseal… All this was me?" Harry asked, more shocked than anything, when everything. "Is Dumblethingy the old man with the glasses and a stick?" he asked, putting the thought of him destroying the house to the back of his mind.

"Yes, he is. He's the one who put you here and won't let you leave. When your parents died they left us with the task of caring for you should anything happen to your godfather. You should never have come here, but he got to you before we found out about their deaths and left you to these… _people_" the first man answered with a snarl at the last word. "We tried to get you out when the original wards failed but you had already left and he got to you first. By the time we tracked you both back here, the new wards were already in place."

Suddenly his explanations were cut off as a metalic crackling sounded from his and his partner's ear along with some words Harry couldn't understand.

"We have to go, now, our lookout has spotted the old man heading this way at speed. Please, Harry-san, will you come with us? If he sees us he will know where you have gone and you will not be safe from him" the second man asked him, kneeling and holding out his hand to Harry.

Smiling for the first time in as long as he could remember he took the strange man's hand, figuring that anything was better than beatings, torture and some strange old man's sick experiments. Smiling fondly the dark haired man said; "Great, not so troublesome after all. I'm Shikaku and this is Inoiki. We'll get out of here and meet up with Chouza then take you to your new home." Harry felt a tug and a swirl of wind and he was suddenly outside at the park several streets away with the two men.

After about a minute a new guy appeared, he had a mass of long spiky red hair and a white bandage over his forehead. He wore a black long sleeved shirt under an armoured plate with a red symbol on the front and had forearm guards like Inoiki. He also wore long black pants and sandals but had a thick coiled belt with a brown apron-like flap that went down to his shins. He greeted Inoiki and Shikaku and was introduced to Harry as Chouza

"We're good, he hasn't followed us. He's still trying to undo all the stuff the little one did when he released his core. There must be a whole square mile of random destruction, animated sundries and transformed items. There are squads on the way, we should be going before they begin sweeping the area."

"Agreed. Harry-san, if you would climb onto my back, I shall carry you to our extraction point, it will be much quicker than walking." Inoiki, saying this, knelt down so that he could carry Harry piggyback style.

Nodding quickly, not wanting to be caught and handed back to the Dursleys again, Harry climbed onto the man's back. With one final glance around them to make sure they weren't being watched, the three men and their charge disappeared in a gust of leaves.

Several hours after his impromptu suicide attempt, Harry found himself in a hot, dry and heavily forested land, staring up at the largest set of gates he had ever imagined. Looking left and right he saw the giant walls continuing in a slight curve away into the cleared out forests on either side. Swallowing nervously, he followed his guards/rescuers past a booth where two young-looking guards watched them, or more specifically him, warily. There was a quick exchange of paperwork and some surprisingly friendly looks from the guards before they were waved through. When he asked about it, Chouza, who he'd come to like for his larger-than-life cheerfulness and general attitude, told him that his parents had been well liked here before they were killed.

"Killed? I was told they died drunk in a car crash." Harry responded without thinking. The three turned to look at him with shocked looks upon their faces. Shikaku growled angrily before violently stubbing out the cigarette he was smoking. "Mendokuse baka no… Apologies, but that is an insult to their memories. They died protecting you, they sacrificed themselves to protect you from a homicidal maniac who terrorised your country for years before that night."

"Oh, so they stopped him then?" Harry asked, intrigued, this was the most he'd ever heard about his birth-parents apart from the insults his uncle had spewed about them.

"No, Harry-san, you did, that's why you are so famous in your country, did no one ever tell you?" Chouza asked.

"What? That's crazy, I can't have, I must have been less than a year old, and I'm not famous… oh no, I'm the wrong person… look please, I'm sorry, I'll do anything, just don't send me back there." Harry was panicking, his dream of escaping the Durselys quickly fading out of his grasp. "I'm sorry, please, I…"

"Harry-san, stop." Inoiki commanded firmly. "Are you not Harry James Potter, son of James Potter and Lily Evans-Potter?" Harry nodded quickly, hope rekindling quickly despite his best efforts to suppress it. "Did you not live at No. 4 Privet Drive Little Whinging, Surrey, England, with your aunt Petunia Evans-Dursley, her husband Vernon Dursley and their son Dudley Dursely?" Harry nodded again. "Finally, do you have a lightning-bolt shaped scar on your forehead?"

"How do you know about that?" Harry asked, bemused as he lifted his hand subconsciously to scratch the offending piece of tissue.

"Everyone knows about that, you got it when you beat…" Shikaku began then sighed. "No, this isn't right, I had thought they would at least tell you a little about yourself and your parents. Screw protocol, the Hokage needs to know this now. Sorry, kid, but your questions are going to have to wait. We'll take you to our boss and he'll explain everything. Chouza, can you take him?"

"Just because you're too lazy to do it yourself." Chouza murmured just loud enough for Harry to hear as he bent to lift the boy onto his back. Despite the situation Harry had to suppress a smirk, the chubby man had been mocking Shikaku's laziness almost since they had left England, in English, to Harry's great amusement.

Once Harry was secure the group took off at high speed to the largest building around. It was a tall red tower, set against the backdrop of the cliff face that bordered one side of the village. Said cliff face had been carved and four dispassionate faces stared out across the entire village, keeping silent vigil and Harry was reminded of the pictures he had seen of the Americans' Mt. Rushmore.

As the party jumped from rooftop to rooftop at high speed, Harry pondered his current situation. _'Weird but definitely better than the Dursleys'_ was his conclusion, '_No matter what happens I just hope they let me stay. Learning this roof-running thing would be cool as well.'_


	2. Introducing, Konoha!

Harry looked around the office he was in with wonder showing clearly in his eyes. He had been seated whilst his three escorts stood around the chair and supposedly reported his rescue to the old man sat behind a desk piled high with papers. Unfortunately as they were speaking in something other than english, he couldn't understand a word that they were saying. He made out his own name and Bumblewhatsits as well as Dursley and what he was sure was a curse from the sideways look the old man had given him at its mention. His own blank look must have reassured the old man, whom, Harry had noted with interest, wore a strange ceremonial hat with a red symbol on the front. It was a cool hat, Harry decided, but it looked like it would get in the way a lot too, maybe it was _meant_ to get in the way so people couldn't see your face. Chouza was still talking, probably about his own part of the mission and Harry let his attention wander over the rest of the stuff in the room. It was simply decorated, the desk being the biggest feature but there were tapestries and scrolls hanging from the walls rather tastefully. His attention was drawn back to the desk and the monumental piles of papers stacked there. Looking closely he could see a small orange corner sticking out of the bottom of one of the smaller piles. He leant closer and, when nobody seemed about to stop him, reached out and grabbed what appeared to be a small book. He flicked through a few pages, unable to read the mass of symbols and unable to find any pictures. It was then that he noticed the conversation had stopped and all four men were looking at him.

"Sorry," he said quietly putting the book back, "It looked interesting, but I couldn't read it and there weren't any pictures."

At this Chouza let out a loud full-bellied guffaw before laughing himself silly, Shikaku chuckled quietly to himself whilst Inoiki tried to hide his grin. Harry turned to apologise to the old man but found him blushing sheepishly and refusing to meet his eyes.

Seeing the look of confusion and sadness on Harry's face, Hiruzen Sarutobi decided to turn the topic of conversation away from his embarrassing find. _"So, I take it you don't speak Japanese either, eh Harry-san?"_ he asked in Japanese. Seeing the blank look on Harry's face as he spoke he turned to Shikaku, asking; _"I suppose getting one of you three to act as his translator for the foreseeable future would be too troublesome wouldn't it?"_ Turning to Inoiki as the dark haired shinobi merely smirked at the joke, he asked _"I may have a favour to ask of you Inoiki. I think you can guess as to what it will be, however I do not ask this lightly. Before you do anything, however, I wish you to talk to the boy, find out what he would like to do. If he wishes to stay he will be put up for adoption from the civilian side of town. If he also wishes to become a ninja, then I may just have the perfect place for him. If he wants to leave, then we will escort him wherever he wishes to go. We owe his parents that much. Should he choose to become a ninja he will need to be sent to the Academy with this year's current intake and I would ask you to perform the transference jutsu as well as setting him up at Naruto-kun's building, if not then I leave it to your discretion and he will either be placed in the orphanage or your team will escort him to his chosen destination. Report back later when you have an answer. Clear? Dismissed"_ The Hokage signalled them to leave with a wave of his hand, before turning back to the paperwork on his desk and sighing in frustration as the shinobi team with their young charge left his office. He was glad the team had finally managed to rescue the boy from his abusive relatives and the old man's manipulations, but for some reason he could tell the boy was going to play merry hell with his paperwork, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to put him with the village's top prankster. Kami alone knew how much more paperwork Naruto's mischief alone had added to his pile. He thought for the thousandth time about getting an assistant to lighten his workload but once again dismissed the idea, too many important decisions had to be made, too much vital information passed through his office to allow just anyone access to it. Plus he still handled all of Naruto's paperwork and bank accounts and he was sure most villagers would abuse the power and seek to harm the boy if they had access. Sighing again, _'I'm doing that a lot lately'_ he thought as he tackled the next stack of paper threatening to bury his desk. _'"Petition for the public execution of Uzumaki Naruto?" that's the third one this week'_ he thought ruefully, _'Denied."Request for Uzumaki Naruto to be placed into the ANBU Root training programme." Denied, again, sodding Danzo.'_ Yep, it was definitely gonna be one of those days.

Outside the Hokage Tower, Inoiki bade farewell to his two team-mates and took Harry's hand. Guiding the boy in the direction of the park where he liked to sit and cloud-watch. Somehow his lazy-ass partner had gotten him stuck on the hobby. At least it provided him time to meditate and try and expand his family's jutsu. He looked at the boy walking beside him, who was taking in all the sights of Konoha's main market street. Slowing when they approached a bench he sat down and motioned for Harry to do so as well. "So, Harry," he began in English, much to the boy's delight, "the Hokage has looked quite favourably on your predicament. He's offering you a few choices. Firstly let me tell you a bit about why he is doing so. As you may have guessed, you can do things that most others can't, so can Dumbledore, the old man with a stick and glasses, so could your parents." He noticed the boy's attention pick up even further at the mention of his family. "Unfortunately, so too could the man who murdered them. When your parents and you went into hiding, Dumbledore approached the Hokage of the time and requested a team of ninja for protection duty. He sent my team. We spent most of a year with your parents and became fast friends, they were two of the greatest people I have ever known. On the night, all those years ago, when we failed in our duty we managed to intercept the man and most of his squad. We got too caught up in the fight and before we realised he had gone on to the house and left his minions to us it was too late. As we finished off our final opponents we heard a huge explosion rock the house where you were hidden. We were there in minutes but it was too late. Your parents had gone and we feared for you as well, we feared that two wonderful people and their child had been lost to our own carelessness."

Inoiki's expression had darkened all the way through his telling of the tale, but his eyes lit up and seemed hopeful when he continued. "But no, there you were. Safe, sound and still mostly asleep. We looked around but the only sign of Voldemort we could find was a charred pile of clothes by your cot. You'd survived. Impossibly and against all precedent, you survived a killing curse with only that small scar to show for it. What was more, you'd somehow stopped the worst mass murderer in the history of your country and all before you could even walk and talk. We nearly brought you back here then and there, but Dumbledore, our client, had sent a man to retrieve your family and he appeared out of the fireplace. A giant of a man, he took you in his arms and started walking off into the night. We followed at a distance, we were still under contract to protect the Potter family and that meant you. He met another man, a friend of your parents, who gave him his flying motorcycle before disappearing himself with a loud crack. After that, following the pair of you became very difficult, but we eventually caught up with you as Dumbledore was laying you at the doorstep of your aunt's house. He did some of his magic then and set up a barrier around the house. We stayed a few weeks to make sure you were safe, but when we saw the conditions they kept you in, we were too late again to do anything about it. The barrier had taken hold and we couldn't get past it."

He looked down into the boy's eyes and tried his best to convey the regret he felt at his treatment. "We reported back here by messenger bird and the Hokage set up a rotational watch on the house. He said that Konoha had failed your family and he'd be damned if it couldn't at least make amends to you. Since then the wards dropped only twice, once just over a year ago but the team on duty was too slow to get to you in time. The second time was yesterday, when you unleashed their power into that vortex."

Returning to the topic at hand he placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Out of respect for your parents and to go someway towards repaying for our failure, the Hokage is giving you the choice as to what you want to do. You are more than welcome to stay here or my team and I have orders to take you to wherever you feel safest, wherever you want to go, we will take you and set you up with a nice family."

Wide, almost tear-filled eyes looked back at him as Harry answered; "I don't know anywhere else other than Uncle Vernon's house, and I never want to go back there again, so I'd like to stay here please. I don't have any money, but I can cook and clean and I'm good at gardening and simple repairs."

"Don't worry, we won't treat you as a slave here, we will find you a family to take care of you, you won't need to work for your upkeep, you're barely seven years old for Kami's sake!" Inoiki exclaimed before realising something and looking at the date on a newspaper discarded in an adjacent bin. "By Kami, you are seven aren't you? Today's your birthday, isn't it?"

"Uh, I think so, I haven't really thought about it much before." Harry answered honestly. Thinking about his birthday only hurt because of how differently it was treated compared to Dudley's at the Dursley household. Once he'd gotten a piece of string. Last year he'd been allowed to play with one of Dudley's broken toys, a miniature train carriage, for five whole minutes before the boy had demanded it back out of spite.

Inoiki picked up immensely at the news and declared, "Right, after we're done here we're getting you a cake. Actually, Chouza would probably be a better person to go to for a cake, we're getting you a present! Now, final little question. In this village we operate a ninja training and mission system which is our main form of income. As it turns out you are just the right age to join in with the first year class in the academy and the Hokage has offered you a place. What do you think? It's a tough life. There will be lots of hardships, it isn't for everyone and there is the very real possibility of death. There are some benefits to it too, such as great pay and a chance to travel all over the shinobi world, not to mention you learn some pretty cool stuff if you have the ability and are willing to train."

"Can you teach me to run on the rooftops?" Harry asked back with a mad grin on his face.

"Ha ha. Oh, kid, that's the least of what you could learn. If you want to see some really cool techniques I'll take you to see Hatake-san later. I guess that's a yes then?"

"Yep." Harry replied grinning when his face suddenly fell. "Um, I know you said that I'm the right age to join the training school, but will they speak English there?" he asked

"Ah, that's something that Hokage-sama asked me to help with if you agreed. My family specialises in mind manipulation techniques, specifically sending things from one mind to another. If you are willing, then I can send you my understanding of our language. It's quite painful to have memories implanted directly into your brain as the brain isn't used to such treatment and I will have some adverse effects from it as well, but it is quick and will allow you to better assim... assi... _damn, I always struggle with that word_. It'll let you adapt to this place in time to join the Academy in a few weeks."

Harry thought it over for a few seconds. He was used to pain by now, and it would be useful to know what everyone was saying around him. All-in-all it would be worth the short painful episode to cut down on months of learning a new language. "Ok, let's do it," he grinned up at Inoiki, "But then you owe me a cake"

Inoiki laughed at the cheeky kid, glad he was finally coming out of his shell. "Deal kid, now hold still and look into my eyes for a moment."

Harry looked up at the blond ninja's face as he heard him say what sounded like "Shin ten sin..." and something else before his head exploded.

Pain. Pain, beyond pain. Pure agony raced through his mind as fast as thought itself. Knowledge and understanding burnt and branded itself on the inside of his mind as the foreign language in all it's intricacy suddenly became instinctual to him.

When the feeling of his brain burning from the inside out settled to that of a dull throb of his, now too loud, heartbeat Harry opened his eyes again. "Crap on a stick, _that hurt._" he exclaimed, clutching his head in his hands, almost falling off the bench he was sitting on in the process. Turning to his right, he looked at Inoiki, who was massaging his own scalp. _"Ugh, I'm never gonna get used to that"_ Harry heard him mutter. Something struck a chord with the way he spoke though. It didn't seem right for some reason. "_Are you_ OK?" he asked the man

_"Yeah, fine. Its just gonna take me a while to recover my chakra reserves after that. It's a pretty energy intensive technique, thankfully I don't think I've lost any memories in the transfer."_ was the reply he got. Once again, something about what was being said didn't seem right to Harry, he understood him perfectly but it was like what he was saying didn't match up with what he heard in his head.

"_What happened?_ Did _the technique_ work? It hurt like _hell._"

_"Well, if the facts that you can understand what I'm saying now and that you keep switching languages halfway through sentences are any indication then I'm gonna have to say yes."_ Inoiki replied with a small smirk despite his continued headache, having to figure out half of what his charge was saying didn't help.

"Eh? _What_ are you talking _about?_" Harry asked, confused. "Am I _really speaking_ in two languages _at once?"_

_"Not at once, a few words of each, one after the other. It's something you're gonna have to work on during the next two weeks before you start at the Academy. Don't worry, you'll get used to it soon enough, then you should be able to tell which you're speaking and listening to given enough practice. You'll have to learn how to read and write our language, but with the speaking part down it shouldn't be too difficult. Anyway, that's getting ahead of ourselves. Come on, let's show you where you'll be staying. The Hokage should have let your new roommate know to expect us by now." _With that, Inoiki stood up and, taking the boy's hand, guided him to one of the small apartment complexes in the quieter side of the village.

Naruto had been having a rather crappy day, even by his own poor standards. He'd been kicked out of yet another shop, trying to get some halfway decent groceries for once. Cries of "Demon brat!" had followed him down the street as he dodged rotten vegetables and other projectiles hurled his way. Being honest with himself, he wouldn't go back there again even if they turned around and begged him, any shop that kept that many inedible and necrotic foodstuffs within easy access was to be avoided in his opinion.

Depressed once again, he resigned himself to another week of Ichiraku ramen. Not that he minded of course, that stuff was heaven in a bowl, but it would have been nice to have a bit of variety for once. Deciding to cheer himself up he headed home for some pranking supplies, ANBU headquarters had been getting lax in their security lately as he hadn't pranked them in a few weeks. _'Time to show them jus what a "demon" can do if they're not careful.' _he thought with a sadistic grin on his face.

He was just approaching the door to his building when he spotted the Sandaime Hokage just turning the corner at the end of the street. "Oi! Ojii-san!" he called his customary greeting, at which the old man smiled.

"Hello, Naruto," he replied, "I come bearing good news!"

"Yeah, well, I wish you'd come bearing good food, but I suppose it'll have to do" came the cheeky comment.

"Stiffed at the shops again?" The old man asked with a scowl on his face. "I'm sorry Naruto, but if I showed you any more preferential treatment than I do now the council would likely force me to retire again."

"Meh, it's okay. You already set me up with a room and spending money, anything else is just extra. Besides, when I take that hat off you, they'll have to treat me better!" he finished with his usual grin. "So, what's the good news? The Hyuuga's finally accept my proposal about experimental propriety-ass-stick removal surgery?"

"You're the one who keeps sending those in? You do realise that I have to read all proposals out in front of the entire council, don't you?" asked the shocked Hokge

"Ah, then you might want to find the one labeled 'Emo kid distribution programme; Uchiha relocation project' and remove it before this week's meeting. I thought they'd just give you and your secretaries a laugh, didn't mean to embarrass you in front of the council."

"It's fine, some of us get a kick out of them, Tsume in particular loves them and is still trying to figure out who it is that sends them in, they really brighten up a dreary meeting. I'll make you a bet, if you can come up with one that makes Aburame or Hyuuga clan heads laugh before next week's meeting I'll treat you to a night at Ichiraku's." he grinned as his young charge's face lit up in joy. "Now, for the real reason I came to see you. We have a new resident in the village and unless I am much mistaken, he will agreed to join the academy this year with your starting class. His name is Potter Harry and if you're willing, he's to be your roommate for the foreseeable future. What do you think?"

Naruto took a while to process the information and think things over before asking; "Does he know how the villagers treat me?"

"Not yet, though I'm sure he'd learn eventually on his own, I thought it would be best if you were to tell him yourself" he said kindly as he put a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder. "Now, as he is currently unable to read and write our language I'll be sending over a few scrolls you can use to tutor him before the start of classes." Seeing the boy's expression quickly sour at the thought of it he quickly added; "Though one or two might be of the chakra control and jutsu variety, just so he knows their format and can get some practice in outside of class." Watching Naruto's face brighten again made the old man chuckle, he couldn't be seen openly helping the "demon" get stronger even if it was with some minor jutsu or exercises that most clans taught their children before they entered the academy anyway. however it would be remiss of him to not offer assistance to a potential new addition to the village. This way he could at least help the boy out discretely without losing his position. _'Damn the council and their vote of no confidence threats. There's no telling what my replacement would do if they went through with them. Probably accept the execution orders or Root requests, either way I'd never see him again.'_

"Anyway, Harry-san should be coming around some time this afternoon with Yamanaka Inoiki. If I could ask you to put any mayhem you have planned on hold until then it'd be much appreciated."

"Sure thing ojii-san. I'll take care of Harry-san for you. See ya around!" he called as the Hokage turned to make his way back to his office, stopping off for a quick lunch at a dango bar on the way.

_'Hmm, wonder what he'll be like. It'll be nice to have someone other than ojii-san, Teuchi-san and Ayame-neechan to talk to. Plus he can help me with pranks!'_ he thought with a slight evil smile on his face as he made his way up to his apartment, making sure to dismantle the traps he'd set up along the way. It wouldn't have been a great idea to injure his new roommate before he'd even met him would it? _'Gonna have to teach him the tricks of the trade, well at least enough not to get killed on his way into the apartment, probably how to sneak about too. Then we can wreak double the havoc! Hmm... gonna have to stock up on smoke bombs and stink pellets soon, especially if I'm gonna be Harry-san's new pranking instructor... Yosh! Instant ramen time!'_


	3. Becoming an Uzumaki

It had been 3 years since Harry had arrived in Konohagakure no Sato and to say that either had been changed by his arrival would be an understatement. Harry in particular had undergone a dramatic shift from when he had first entered the village as a half starved and timid boy. He now stood at 4' 4" high, slightly taller than most his age in the village and had filled out nicely. Wiry and fast, he was the perfect build for a stealthy and quick ninja-in-training.

He stood proud and confidently on the roof of the Konoha Academy, dressed in his usual grey muscle shirt under a light brown jacket, his muted green trousers tucked into a pair of grey toe-less shinobi boots. Next to him stood his roommate and best friend Naruto Uzumaki, wearing his trademark orange jumpsuit, navy blue toe-less boots and goggles keeping the hair off of his forehead. They were looking out over the village they had called home as civilians for the past three years, ready to call it home as ninja that afternoon, for today was the day of the graduation exam.

Physically there was nothing much different about the village in question, it just so happened that the number of shinobi patrolling or otherwise just being visible out on the streets had nearly doubled and those that were out seemed permanently on edge, always glancing over their shoulders, furtively checking every alley or doorway they passed. The civilians and off-duty shinobi forces on the other hand seemed quite relaxed and laid back, some even seemed to watch the on-duty forces out of the corners of there eyes as they passed them on the streets. The reason for this was the two pranksters who stood atop the Academy waiting to open up a new chapter in their lives.

After Naruto had introduced Harry to the subtle art and science that is pranking the two had declared a prank war on the ANBU of Konoha as well as the Council of Advisors. It hadn't really been so bad until they had started trying to outdo each other, which had in turn sparked their frequent comedy movie marathons looking for inspiration, which had also led to the horrific Trojan Bunny incident, but no one spoke of that any more nor ever would again. Even then it still wasn't truly terrible until the two had cottoned on to the theory behind seals, more accurately, the seals behind explosive notes as those were the only ones taught to academy students. Even the ninja section of the Konoha library had only sparse and basic information on seals other than explosive notes or storage seals and those seemed to be locked up in the Jounin-only section, still the boys were not deterred. Thirty new variations and modifications of the notes later, from minor low-powered explosions to the fear inducing manure-bombs, the two had found a niche in the pranking circuit and were close to giving senior Chunin heart-attacks on a near weekly basis.

Naruto turned to his friend with a grin. "So, final prank as civilians, eh?"

"Yep, might as well go out with a bang, who knows when we'll have time in between awesome missions to really put the effort in any more." Agreed his raven-haired colleague.

"Anywhere in particular I should be looking?"

"There might be something interesting off towards the southeast happening soon... and myself?"

"Personally I've always liked watching the comings and goings around the Hokage Tower this time of day. Southeast... Hyuuga or Nara? Who am I kidding, what fun is it pranking a Nara?"

Just as he finished talking there was a commotion from the direction the black haired boy was looking. Pulling out a set of field binoculars from his jacket's inner pocket he got a close-up of several civilians running out of the council chambers of the Hokage tower covered in a black substance, cursing, spitting and yelling like crazy. "Exploding inkwells? Nice, very sneaky."

"I'm always saying, if I can sneak in wearing this orange monstrosity then something needs to be done about security, but do they listen? Nooo... The great thing about this prank though is that it isn't just a one hit wonder. It will happen again and again whenever the subject of..." BOOOOM "What was that? I nearly missed it then, hand me those binoculars for a second, would you?"

Harry grinned and handed them over, whilst lacking the subtle sneakiness Naruto's plans often involved, he loved to fall back on the bigger is better school of thought, especially when it came to explosions.

"Is that? No way, you got the paint seal to work?" Naruto asked as he saw a dense, coloured mist settle over the Hyuuga clan compound.

"Yep, only in pink at the moment though, and it still uses far too much chakra in my opinion. Speaking of colours, I can't believe never thought to ask this until now but why _do_ you always wear orange if you hate it so much?"

"Well, it used to be that it was the only thing that I could get the stupid shopkeepers to sell me, but then I realised something about the colour orange. First it makes it damn hard to sneak anywhere, making it more of a challenge, like taijutsu training with weights on. Secondly, if you look at it too long it starts to give you a migraine. Not making it aesthetically a good choice, but if I were to get in a really long fight I'd take any chance, slim as it may be, for an advantage, even an orange induced migraine."

"Oh, so it's nothing to do with the fact that Hinata-chan gave you a set for your birthday one year and you've been wearing the same thing ever since?" Teased Harry.

"Bugger off. Come on, let's get inside before the ANBU come looking for us again." The slightly blushing Naruto turned and made his way inside, off the roof, followed by a grinning Harry.

Before long the two were ensconced in their usual seats at the back of the second floor classroom. They were just debating the finer points of each other's pranks when Iruka and Mizuki, the two senseis for the class, walked in looking disgruntled and slightly haggard.

"SETTLE DOWN!" Iruka yelled at the noisy classroom, his head seeming to double in size from the force of his yell and glare combo. _'That's gotta be some kind of seal-less genjutsu.' _Harry thought as he watch his sensei staring down the sasuke fanclub who looked ready to fight when they saw only one available seat next to the object of their obsession.

A short scuffle later and a dark haired civilian girl managed to claim the seat, much to the displeasure of the rest of the group and Iruka turned to Mizuki, signalling him to start the register.

Just as he got to Nara, Shikamaru, the classroom door was opened by an ANBU wearing a bear-style mask. "Apologies, Teacher-san. May I ask for a moment of your time?" he asked in a deep, growling voice.

"Of course, ANBU-san." relied Iruka before following the man out into the hallway. Mizuki continued on with the register with barely a pause. He was nearly finished when Iruka's raised voice could be heard muffled through the walls.

"You think Iruka sensei's in trouble?" Naruto asked Harry with a slight hint of worry to his voice.

"He did come in looking worse for wear... So did Mizuki though, so if it was anything to do with that they'd both be outside. It could be about a student, though that'd be pretty unlikely unless anyone's done something to piss off the Hokage or the council in the past few days..."

"Crap, we're so dead aren't we?"

"Possibly, we could escape but that'd just make us look guilty."

"We are guilty."

"They can't prove that yet, if we run it gives them an excuse. I say we go along with the ANBU when they eventually do come to take us away. We haven't touched their HQ in weeks so they might go easy on us."

"Then we prank the hell out of them when their backs are turned." The blonde's face lit up with an evil smile, making him look more feral and crazy than Harry had ever thought possible.

"You've been practicing that in the mirror haven't you?" Harry asked with an amused grin.

"Shut it" was the only response he got before the door opened once more to admit Iruka as well as the bear-masked ANBU.

"Potter Harry and Uzumaki Naruto," the ANBU announced whilst Iruka stood with an angry frown still plastered on his features, "you have been officially summoned to stand trial before the council. As such you are unable to participate in the genin exams or ninja training of any kind until the matter is dealt with. Please come with me." With that, he turned and left the room to wait expectantly out in the hallway. Shrugging to themselves and passing the still fuming Iruka they left the classroom.

Looking around the hallway outside the classroom they saw only the bear masked ANBU waiting for them. Unable to control himself, Naruto spoke up "Only one of you to collect the pair of us? I think we're being insulted, don't you Harry-kun?"

"Well, we have given most of the ANBU tracking squads a good run for their money several times in the past, however that has always been when we have been caught doing something we shouldn't. As Bear-san is the only one here to 'bring us in' I can only assume that there is in fact no or very limited actual proof to link us to whatever might have happened whilst we were in class."

"Very astute young one," commented the ANBU, "I have in fact been tasked to apprehend you because there have been some unusual seals used against our esteemed council and the family of one of its members. Naturally your previous pranks and known targets have led the council to immediately suspect the two of you and I volunteered to be the one to collect you. Now, if you would be so kind we are expected in the council chambers." With that the trio departed the building and made their way to the Hokage Tower.

When they arrived at the Hokage Tower the three made their way to the large ornate doors on the ground floor that marked the entrance to the council chambers. They parted ways with the ANBU wishing them luck. As they were about to go in Harry turned to the man and asked him; "Why are you being so friendly to us?" causing him to stop and turn to face the pair of them.

"You two have yet to get me with one of your pranks and I have to admit, they are extremely funny when you aren't the subject of them. Except for... you know..." he said, finishing with a shudder at the memory.

The two boys looked slightly depressed as regret and shame passed over their faces at the mention of the TBI (Trojan Bunny Incident), however indirect. This quickly passed and the two, after final goodbyes, turned as one, opened the doors and stepped through to meet the council. As they did so, the Bear masked ANBU disappeared with a pop in a cloud of smoke.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was having a rather poor day. Paperwork was, once more, getting out of hand and some had even spread itself onto chairs and the floor. He'd missed the morning's council meeting to get a good start on it. The meeting was only the weekly one anyway, nothing of import would be discussed until the bi-monthly meeting the following week so he could afford to be lax and allow the council to run the village's day to day affairs. It wasn't until the ANBU he'd assigned to be Harry and Naruto's watcher made his presence known that he allowed himself to look up from his workload.

"What is it Bear-kun?" he asked, already fearful of the answer.

"Hokage-sama, the council have summoned Uzumaki-san and Potter-san to appear before them. They are to be tried for wilful assault of many of the council members and of the Hyuuga clan. I volunteered to escort them, my clone should be nearly there by now if not on its way back."

"What happened, quickly." He ordered as he stood, rapidly putting away his paperwork and donning his more official regalia in preparation for the council meeting.

"The two decided to play one last prank apiece as civilians. One caused the inkwells in the council chambers to explode, covering the council members in the substance, whilst the other planted some kind of paint bombs all over the Hyuuga estate, colouring them and their residents a bright pink at the time of detonation."

The Hokage had to stop for a second as he was putting on his hat as the mental image of what was just described passed through his consciousness. Shaking himself out of his mental stupor he strode quickly out of his office and began taking the stairs down to the council chambers two at a time. "When did the bombs go off?"

"At 08:55, almost simultaneously, whilst the two were in the Academy waiting for their graduation exams to start. Witnesses put them entering at 08:47 and not leaving until I collected them." The ANBU stated with precision, having received the information his clone obtained from Iruka when it had dispelled, seconds before.

"No concrete evidence against them?"

"Aside from their known penchant for explosions and hatred of the council and Hyuugas in general, no. We cannot be sure of their guilt unless a witness comes forth, they admit their guilt or we have a Yamanaka take a look at them. Either way the council will probably decide to string out the questioning for as long as possible so as to prevent the two from taking their genin examinations today, if you will forgive my impertinence, Hokage-sama."

"You are forgiven," Sarutobi sighed at the truth of the man's words as the pair approached the council chamber doors, "Did the two exhibit any signs of guilt when your clone picked them up?"

"No sir, they have become skilled at hiding their emotions behind a mask of indifference and humour. They did seem annoyed that I was the only one sent to escort them, claiming it was an insult to their reputations to have only a single shinobi sent after them."

Smiling, the Hokage dismissed the ANBU and, after rearranging his robes, made his grand entrance to try and at least spare the boys an undeservedly harsh punishment.

Naruto was bored. It was hard to concentrate on what these dry and dull old men were talking about, even if it was his own punishment. Ojii-ans's grand entrance had been a highpoint but it had quickly turned to dull and tedious debate. When he became Hokage, he'd probably get rid of this stupid fussy lot of asses that seemed to do little but argue. His interest perked up a bit as the Hokage ordered silence.

"Right," he began, "I believe it is time for a vote or else we'll be here all day, if we haven't already. The choices are; Should this council find the two guilty of assault of members of this council and their families the two shall be fined the _appropriate_ amount to reimburse those offended and shall be given no less than 48 hours of community service to undo the damage they have caused to the Hyuuga residences, however given the nature of said crimes they shall also be inducted into Konoha's shinobi ranks as genin for demonstrating impressive degrees of stealth, planning, teamwork and skill in fuuinjutsu. Should the council find the two not guilty they shall be released, their names cleared and they shall be compensated for being forced to miss their genin exams to the extent of a semester's tuition at the academy each..."

"Excuse me, Hokage-sama, if I may interject," came the voice of Danzo after the cries of outrage and indignation had died down. The man was, as always, swathed in bandages all up his right hand side and his calm and measured presence always set Sarutobi's teeth on edge thinking about the calculating and semi-treasonous mind underneath. "I believe the majority of us find these terms to be somewhat lax and disproportionate. As this is merely a matter of childhood delinquency, could we not leave the punishment up to the guardians of the accused and those aggrieved?" The man smirked. If this was agreed upon then as the boys had no guardians and were officially emancipated, though under control of the state, they would have to answer before over half the council and the entire Hyuuga clan themselves.

"Fine, this third option shall also be included in the vote." Announced the Hokage with a weary voice, praying that the ruse would work, Naruto had, unawarely at least, set up the perfect trap for this eventuality not two weeks previously.

_"Oi, Ojii-san!" the hyperactive blonde yelled in greeting as he barged into the Hokage's office, causing the old man to smile warmly at the boy who plopped down into a seat in front of him without being asked. After all those hours of seeing the false deference and respect he got from council members who would twist his orders and laws to their own agendas given any leeway, the honest familiarity and impropriety Naruto practically exuded was a welcome balm for his soul._

_"Greetings, Naruto-kun, to what do I owe the pleasure?"_

_"I was uh... I was wondering about Harry actually..."_

_"Oh, nothing wrong between you I hope?"_

_"Nah, nothing like that, it's just...well neither of us has anybody... well... we haven't had much luck on the whole family side of things. I know something went wrong with his relatives at his old place but he doesn't like to talk about it much, says he got away from them and he's happy to let it stay that way."_

_"I'm sorry Naruto, but if he doesn't want to tell you then..."_

_"No,no, you've got me all wrong, Ojii-san," the blond had protested, "It's nothing like that, I was just thinking that, since I don't have a family and he doesn't have a family that the two of us together could... you know"_

_"You want to adopt Harry-kun?"_

_"Yeah, that's the word I was looking for! So, can I do it Ojii-san? I want to surprise him with it when we pass out of the Academy!"_

_"That's quite thoughtful of you, Naruto-kun. I'll see about setting this up for you if you want."_

_"Cheers, Ojii-san, I knew I could rely on you!" Naruto yelled as he hopped up off of his seat and made his way out of the door. Sarutobi smirked to himself as he dug around in his desk for a set of clan adoption papers with a wicked grin on his face at how much trouble the blonde had inspired him to cause._

As the votes were tallied it seemed to Danzo that his plan, of which he had informed many of the council secretly before the Hokage had arrived and he'd had to stop, was going to go off without a hitch. Soon he'd be able to get his hands on the demon-brat's power, then he'd show the old man how wrong his 'Will of Fire' was, he'd be able to make Konoha truly great and unquestionably powerful once again. His emotionless mask almost slipped as the council voted majority on his option, with a few ninja as well as the Hokage voting for punishment and instatement into the genin ranks.

Sarutobi also almost let his expressions shift from weary annoyance as the votes were counted. Seeing Danzo's plan coming to fruition he decided that the trap was prime for springing. "As a side note," he spoke up, all the while glancing at Naruto and giving him a subtle smirk, "Would Potter-san, please come up here for a second?"

Seeing no reason not to, Harry made his way quickly up to stand before the Hokage, who produced a set of papers from inside his robes. "We were going to wait until you had passed the genin exams to do this but now is as good a time as any, would you sign these please?"

Harry nodded quickly and signed the papers where indicated, trusting the old man implicitly and already seeing Naruto's signature on the papers sealed the deal for him.

"What is this, Hokage-sama?" asked on of the civilian council members.

"Just a triviality really, Naruto has expressed his wish to adopt Harry-kun here into his family." Harry paused at this, shock clearly evident on his face as he turned to look at the grinning Naruto and then back to the kind smile of the Hokage. He almost welled up from the joy that burst out of his chest as he finished signing the papers. "I take it no one objects?" Hiruzen continued, looking out over the faces of the council members and even offering the paperwork for them to look over. They all muttered a negative response, the boys would soon be punished anyway, what did it matter if the two were related?

"In that case, as witnessed by this council and with no objections raised, I hereby induct Potter Harry into the Uzumaki clan of Konoha as Uzumaki Harry, with all rights and obligations that this entails." Some members of the council, primarily the shinobi members were quickly picking up on the emphasis on the 'clan' part of the speech. "As this official meeting of the council has no objections to this, having been offered the chance to peruse the paperwork and to vote against the action the last surviving members of the Uzumaki clan has now officially been inducted into Konoha as a new clan under Konoha bylaw due to the presence of the Uzumaki bloodline and the Potter bloodline within the clan. The clan is to be given a small, unoccupied compound befitting their size for private use and housing. As the members are underage, I as the Hokage assume the duties as clan head in an official capacity until one of the two reaches the rank of jounin or the age of 25, whichever comes first."

The uproar this caused did not die down for almost quarter of an hour as the various clans and civilians of Konoha made their protests known. The real sticking point was made by Haruno Asuka when she protested that a clan could not be made with only two people. Once Hiruzen pointed out they had made the precedent with the Uchiha child in order to allow him to keep his clan compound the civilian councilmen quietened down rather quickly. When the smaller points were shot down the only protest left was that many would not accept that Naruto could potentially become a clan head and part of the council.

The Hokage's grin turned almost feral at this. "Given the law that forbids speaking directly about this, I shall allow a small circumvention this one time. Are you saying that those in Naruto's _condition_ should be banned from being members of this council? You believe that any person acting as a container in such a way should be banned from becoming a clan head?" He gave Naruto a look that promised a talk later as the room filled with affirmative cries.

"Very well," the Hokage turned to the council once more, "If... if you can convince the Aburame clan to step down from the council as they are all in an identical situation with their bugs, I shall declare it an official law of Konoha that anyone containing a non-human entity, willingly or not, is barred from becoming a clan head and member of this the Council of Konoha."

Needless to say an angry buzzing deterred anyone from taking this further.

"No takers then? In that case, request denied. Now, back to the issue at hand. As acting Uzumaki clan head I believe that the nature of the boys punishments falls under my jurisdiction so the two will spend 48 hours doing community service for the offended parties, cleaning up the mess at the Hyuuga clan compound as well as cleaning all the clothes of this council sullied by the ink explosion earlier. Now, if there are no other issues to deal with the two are dismissed and I call for a recess, Kami knows we've been in here too long for my liking."

At this the council disbanded and exited the building, all in various states of outrage, humiliation, respectfulness and amusement, the last two more prevalent in the more relaxed shinobi members.

Throughout the whole thing, from the moment the Potter boy had become an Uzumaki, Danzo sat stunned in his chair. The sheer shock at the Hokage's manipulations had thrown him completely. He realised that he had, for the first time in a long while, underestimated his old colleague. _'The Professor is passive no longer'_ was the rather sobering thought running through his head as he quickly rose and left the chambers. Plans would need to be re-evaluated, loose ends tied up, tracks covered and, most importantly, security increased.

The debate had raged for hours. Now that the two could see outside again, Harry and Naruto realised just how much time had passed. It was easily three o'clock, meaning the exams would be finished and the Academy closing for the day. Just as their moods were about to drop they heard the Hokage telling them to follow him as he swept past in his formal robes.

"Harry-kun, Naruto-kun, I realise that the two of you may have a lot of questions as to what happened back in there but I'd like to ask you to hold on to the for now. I can't explain everything to you now, but I will later, I promise. I would have preferred to keep the information a secret until you had reached chunin, Naruto-kun, but I think now I shall tell you once you pass your genin exams and get placed on a team. Now, enough talk of secrets and council manipulations, how'd you like to see your new house?"

"Our what?"

"All clans are entitled to a compound on which to build their homes and there just so happens to be an old, unused compound not far from the Nara's. Since they are easy to get on with and you two need a better place than that dingy old apartment now that you are an official clan, I filed the paperwork to transfer it to your name once you became an official clan about a week ago."

"So, we own a house now?" Harry asked

"Yes, and the land it's on and a stretch of the forest behind it as well." Hiruzen grinned at the enthusiastic boys. Come on, let me show you the place and then you can get your stuff and get settled.

The takeover of the newly dubbed Uzumaki Compound had gone well, first the Hokage had channeled some chakra into the gate to open it, then Naruto had simply first had to bind the house to his blood at some special seal on the gate, then he and Harry had to both bind their blood over a second seal that appeared below the first to ensure the grounds recognised the pair of them. Harry thought it was a bit excessive, whoever the old owner was he had apparently gone out of his way to keep the place secure. Security seals of this complexity had to have been expensive, even if the grounds weren't that big.

The Hokage had given them a quick tour of the house, a modest three story detached affair with a decent sized garden leading into some woodland at the back. Well, it was modest compared to the other clan compounds, the Uchiha place was massive and even that wasn't as bad as the overly-affluent-and-rubbing-it-in-your-face Hyuuga buildings.

The more personal of the past owner's possessions had been removed by the Hokage years ago when the man had apparently died without leaving an heir or left the village or something. Still, the house was fully furnished, if a little dusty and he and Naruto had both loved the place immediately, even if he still couldn't rightly justify why the village kept bits of woodland inside the walls untouched by buildings. The Hokage explained that it was something to do with the Shodaime building Konoha in a single night but it all seemed a little far fetched to him.

Later that evening, the two were on their way back from Ichiraku's after celebrating their new official brotherhood and eating their fill. The pair were slowly making their way towards their new house and it was on the way that they ran into their sensei.

"Naruto-kun, Harry-kun, wait up a second!" They heard from behind them and turned to see the chunin jog towards them from down the street.

"Konbanwa, Mizuki-sensei, looks like we're gonna be in your class a little longer." Grinned Harry, even the fact that they would have to remain in the Academy until the next round of examinations wasn't enough to bring the boy down now that he had a proper, well, a decent family for once.

"Actually that is what I wanted to talk to the two of you about. I heard about how you two nearly got made into genins because of the skill you showed in pranking the Hyuuga and the council. I want to give you guys a chance to prove yourselves once again. Listen, think of this as a special exam, you don't want to be stuck in the Academy whilst all your friends go off to form ninja teams do you?"

Seeing that he had their rapt attention he pulled the two closer, conspiratorially lowering his voice. "I can technically still promote you as it's still the day of the examinations but I can't be seen to play favourites or I could get kicked out of the Academy. I still need to see you guys display proficiency in three areas; 'Theory, Jutsu and either stealth, taijutsu or shurikenjutsu (Knife or shuriken throwing).' Pranking the council room was good, but apparently not enough, so here's my plan. You guys need to aim higher, the highest, you need to do something that'll force the council to recognise my decision, you prank the Hokage!"

_'This is so easy, they're falling for it hook, line and sinker.'_

"Now, if you can break in to the Hokage Tower and bring back proof of it that'd be enough for the stealth and planning parts but there's still the jutsu part and you really should go all out on it, not just the same old three from the Academy. There's a scroll in the Hokage's office called the forbidden scroll. It contains some of, if not all of the most powerful jutsu known to the village. If you guys could get in there, get the scroll and learn one of the jutsu out of it each then there's no way the council could overrule me passing the two of you."

He turned, smiling at the faces of the two boys, and began to walk away. "I'll be at training ground seventeen at half past eleven. That gives you over five hours, if you can show me a cool jutsu each and a scroll when I arrive then... well... more genin for Konoha."

Several hours later at training ground 17:

"It's a trap, we can't learn jutsu of this magnitude!"

"Would you shut up with the star wars references? Please?"

"Great anger, I sense in you. On the path to the dark side, you are. Becoming a whiny little bitch, you are, I sense."

*WHACK* "Ow, you bastard!"

"Look, shut up, Yoda, or else the ANBU will find us before we finish learning these jutsu!"

"How are you getting on anyway?"

"Think I've nearly got this Kage Bushin down, I keep making too many though, it says I should start off with one or two and build up from there but I can't seem to make less than ten. How about you?"

"Chakra projection is turning into a bit of a bitch, though I guess it'll be useful once I can learn more fuuinjutsu than just explosive tags, what time is it?"

"22:04, keep practicing, we've only got about an hour left."

"Jawohl, mein Kapitän!"

*WHACK*


	4. The True Genin Test

"Oh, good gods, what hit me?" Harry moaned as he woke up, his head pounding like a jackhammer. "Oi, Naruto, It's your turn to make breakfast!" heeled as he opened his eyes to the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling. _'Where the hell...? Oh, yeah... Naruto's, no... _our_ house' _ he thought as the previous day's events caught up with him.

They had been stupid enough to fall for the traitor's trick and had actually gone through with the bastard's plan. He probably hadn't counted on Iruka showing up just before he did, or that they'd actually managed to learn any of the jutsu in the forbidden scroll. He'd been surprised as hell when Harry and Naruto had turned on him when he'd injured Iruka. They were both quite shocked to hear about Naruto's furry little problem, but not enough for Mizuki to avoid having his ass handed to him by over a thousand Naruto clones.

Naruto hadn't been the only one to get a hit in with their new jutsu though. Projecting an explosive note's seal not to each of the Naruto clones who were piling on top of Mizuki had turned out to be a very bad idea, in hindsight. It turns out that each of the jutsu in the forbidden scroll was not only forbidden for being powerful, but also for being incredibly dangerous. Chakra Projection and Shadow Clones were no exceptions.

When an explosive note activates, chakra flows though the seals to manipulate it first into fire nature chakra then into the end form of an explosion of varying magnitudes depending on the seals used. Harry and Naruto already knew this. Normal clones are chakra constructs that cannot affect the real world apart from in sight and sound unless an element of some kind is used to make them, i.e. wind, fire, earth, shadow, light or water. Harry and Naruto also already knew this.

What they didn't know is that the ink in an explosive note consumes energy as it is burned away by the chakra passing through it, making it highly inefficient, or that when a solid clone is destroyed the memories it gathered during its lifespan are transferred to its creator, much more so with shadow clones, which each have a form of eidetic memory. In short, Chakra Projection made each explosion several times more effective than anyone could have guessed and Naruto had the memory of being blown up shoved into his head a thousand times in rapid succession. Needless to say, neither the boy nor the clearing they were in fared any better for the experience. Mizuki was, fortunately, the only casualty of the night, Iruka, though injured, was not severely wounded and quickly patched up by a medic nin on the way back to the Hokage Tower. They had approached the Hokage once more that night, this time to beg forgiveness and were informed that the Kyuubi was the secret he'd promised they would have been told once they reached genin. With Iruka's impromptu field promotion of the pair, which Hiruzen glad to back up and make official, the point was moot either way.

Now they were lying in their new home, genin of Konoha at last. Harry was surprised to feel no different than he had the previous day, despite the fact that, not only had his whole life changed, he had contributed in the killing of another human being the day before. He couldn't talk to Naruto about it, as he seemed to be having explosion flashbacks in his sleep in the next bed over, and he didn't have the heart to just wake him for no reason, maybe if he had a bucket of water handy, but no. Harry was surprised that the two of them had continued to sleep in the same room. They had done so for years now due to necessity, now that it was unnecessary in such a large house it seemed unthinkable and weird.

Slowly rising, Harry stretched out his tired muscles and went in search of breakfast, before realising that they had only just moved in to the place. They didn't have anything to eat and they'd been so caught up in other things last night that they'd forgotten to buy food! Ichiraku breakfast, here we come.

After a grump Naruto was roused and the pair had dressed, they made their way to the greatest food stand in all of Konoha. They arrived just in time to see Ayame bringing a large pot to the boil behind the counter.

"Ohayo, Ayame-nee-chan, two breakfast specials please!" Naruto shouted in greeting, causing the older girl to turn. Her face was an emotionless mask as she regarded the two boys in front of her before smacking them each upside their heads with her ladle.

"What the hell were you two doing last night? Half the village was up looking for you!"

"Oh, Naruto adopted me, the Hokage gave us a new house, we got tricked into stealing the forbidden scroll in the Hokage's office by our sensei, we each learned an awesome new jutsu, found out that our sensei was a traitor to the village so Naruto made a thousand copies of himself to attack him and I blew them and him into a bajillion pieces. We both got our genin promotions and the pay for a B-rank mission for killing a rogue chunin and recovering village secrets. Naruto keeps having 'I got blown up a thousand times' flashbacks because his copies' memories came back to him all at once and he's struggling to deal with it and I'm concerned that I don't feel bad about killing my sensei, in fact I don't really care that I ended another human's life, I should probably talk to someone about that sometime. How about you, how was your night?"

Ayame just stared at Harry for about five seconds before hitting him over the head again, then pulling him into a hug saying he could talk to her as much as he wanted before congratulating them both on their promotion and first pay check.

"Now then, what was it you wanted, breakfast specials?" She asked when the whole thing was over, moving quickly and with practiced ease to prepare their order. "You want them to go? Academy starts soon doesn't it?"

Harry checked his watch, " Nah, we got plenty of ti... ah crap, forgot to wind the stupid thing up again, what time is it?"

"Quarter to nine. Don't worry these will only take another minute then you can go, consider them on the house, my treat for making genin." Ayame smiled brightly at their thanks and insistence that they pay, having received their B-rank pay they had more money than either had ever had before and didn't want to accept charity any more. A quick ladle to the head each soon quietened their protests and they left a smirking Ayame with their free breakfasts wrapped up in small cardboard and napkin packaging to hurry towards the Academy for their team assignments.

Upon entering the classroom the two quickly realised that there were a lot of passes this year. It seemed everyone from their class and the other one for their year had passed and were all squeezed into the same room.

"Hey, what the hell are you two doing here? You didn't even take the test, this is for genin only!" Came the inevitable cry, from Kiba strangely enough, Harry would have put money on it being Sakura or Ino that yelled at them before realising that the two weren't there. _'Maybe they failed?'_ he thought before addressing the, now silent, room.

"Check out the hitai-ite. We passed." Naruto announced confidently before, once more taking it further than it needed to go. "We didn't even need to take the stupid test, we just kicked a rogue chunin's butt and here we are, genin with a high ranked mission under our belts before we even get assigned our teams! Next stop, Hokage! Believe it!"

This, of course, sparked an uproar. Fortunately the crowd was distracted by the sudden arrival of Sakura and Ino. The two provided enough of a distraction for Harry to drag Naruto to their regular, empty seats and avoid the ire of a room full of fresh shinobi recruits.

"Congratulations, Captain Subtle, what's gonna be your encore? Parading naked through the streets with a fox tattooed across your chest?"

Hinata Hyuuga, who was sat not three seats from the boys immediately grew beet red from the mental image she got from listening in on the conversation and began hyperventilating, a small trickle of blood dribbling from her nose as her bloodline subconciously activated for a second or two. She was still struggling not to faint when Iruka came in to the room looking slightly worse for wear but better than the previous night and began announcing team placements. She came round from her stupor several minutes into the announcement; "...you will be team six under special jounin Gatade Lin. Uzumaki Naruto, Uzumaki Harry and Haruno Sakura *NOOOOOO!* you will be team seven under jounin Hatake Kakashi. Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, Akamichi Choji *NOOOOOO!* you will form team eight under Sarutobi Asuma. Team nine is still in circulation, so Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuuga Hinata and Aburame Shino will become team ten with jounin Yuuhi Kureni as their sensei. Team eleven..."

Hinata zoned out of the rest of the announcements, she was disappointed at not being on the same team as her Naruto-kun, but didn't feel the sense of revulsion towards her teammates as the other girls obviously did with their protests. She cast a sidelong glance at her crush whilst silently wondering when Harry had changed his name from Potter to Uzumaki. She zoned back in when there turned out to be some confusion regarding the broody Uchiha. Aparently the council had pushed for special treatment of him again. He was to be placed as an apprentice attached to all teams and rotated amongst them for training whilst also being trained for solo assassination missions by some special jounin who apparently _only_ did those kind of missions. The village elders were apparently pushing to give the boy as much training and freedom as they could.

"Iruka-sensei, why can't I be on a team with Sasuke-kun instead of these two idiots? Oi, Ino-pig/Forehead STOP COPYING ME!" Came the surprisingly simultaneous outbursts of the Sasuke-fanclub leaders. It really was amazing how similar the two were when you stepped back from their rivalry for a second, though even that was another similarity of the two. Hinata sighed in frustrated pity at the two before turning and staring at her crush once again, it could be a long time before she next saw him, after all.

Several hours later Naruto, Harry and Sakura were all waiting in the same classroom for a jounin who _still_ hadn't turned up. Sakura had opened up her schoolbag, gotten out a book and was trying to ignore the antics of the other two people in the room.

Said other two were furtively debating how best to greet their new instructor in true Uzumaki style. Harry suggested he put an explosive seal on the doorframe. Naruto pointed out that Iruka-sensei might get mad if they destroyed the Academy on the day they left it. Harry suggested putting one of the paint-bomb seals or even the manure-bomb seal instead. Naruto asked if he had tested them with his new ability yet. Harry said no and Naruto immediately vetoed the idea. They finally settled on Naruto's idea, there was a small puff of smoke in the room and then they settled down to wait.

Not long afterwards there was the sound of the door opening and a masked face with spiky silver hair and left eye covered with a headband poked through. Before it could say anything it was hit in the face by a pie. Cue epic laughing fit from inside the room.

Slowly a hand reached up and caught a bit of the pie with the index finger before it was pushed under the mask. "Mmm... custard. Anyway, meet me up on the roof in five minutes, oh and by the way... I hate..."

That was as far as he got before the pie on his face poofed up in a big smoke screen to reveal a Naruto clone holding on the the man's head with it's arms and legs clamped around his face. The man and clone promptly fell into the room, where the clone just as promptly dispelled. The man looked on in shock for a few seconds before shouting "OH GOD, WHAT PART WAS IN MY _MOUTH_?", turning and running from the room at full speed, screaming his head off.

Harry turned to Naruto, who quickly replied to his friend's unasked question, "Just hair I think, though he doesn't need to know that."

It was twenty minutes later when they were joined by the masked man on the roof. Harry was still having giggle-fits whilst Naruto was doing his best to keep a straight face. Sakura was simply looking at the two with unbridled anger, frustration and hatred. The jounin, who was slightly green looking in the area they could see of his face, sat on a railing on the edge of the roof whilst the three genin sat in front of him on the floor.

"Hello, I'm your jounin instructor Hatake Kakashi. Usually I'd start this by asking you guys to all describe yourselves a bit but first I would like to know if you guys have any questions for me." Naruto raised his hand, the picture of a meek and nervous child. "Blondie, go ahead."

"Uh... sensei... are we um... are we married now?"

If they could have seen Kakashi's face at this point the look of horror would have been utterly priceless, as would the greenish pale tinge. As it was, they had to simply make do with him recoiling in shock so violently that he fell off of the railings and proceeded to roll, head over heels, backwards off of the slanted roof to finally slam into the ground below.

This was too much for Naruto who broke character and joined his foster brother in rolling on the floor laughing so hard they felt their sides would burst.

When Kakashi finally made it back up to the roof he saw the two boys struggling to breathe from laughter and the pink haired girl reading whilst shooting disparaging looks at the pair. He was secretly glad there was very little chance these three would pass his team test and he could be rid of the nightmare before it had begun. He was a little confused at the blonde's apparent shapeshifting abilities on top of his shadow clone technique, the former was not in his report and neither should be possible for a genin. There was also the raven-haired boy's reported skill in chakra projection and seals, actually there was good evidence that both boys were at least semi-competent at seals, but that wasn't really the issue next to the other technique. Normally only a seal master would have been allowed to attempt to learn the chakra projection technique as it not only required a fundamental understanding of the seal used but also high chakra reserves and was ripe for potential abuse. Pinky was apparently strong, book-smart and quick to anger with a respect for authority figures. That being the case she would possibly a good help in keeping the other two in line, however it looked like she had already tried and given up to him. Definitely not teamwork material. _'Oh, well, lets just get it over with'_ he thought to himself

"Right, I'll remember that when we're on the training field, Blondie. For now, lets introduce ourselves so we know a little bit about each other, you know, favourite jutsu, people you admire, hobbies, ambitions, favourite animal, anything. Pinky, you first."

"Um, well, I... uh, why don't you go first sensei?"

*sigh* "Fine, my name's Hatake Kakashi, jounin of Konoha, my best technique is a secret A-class assassination one I invented so I can't tell you about that, I haven't really got any hobbies, haven't really thought about the future much, not much to tell. Your turn."

Sakura looked shocked and not a little bemused by her sensei's antics but Harry just laughed.

"My turn," he declared, "Name's Harry Uzumaki, used to be Potter but this idiot adopted me the other day, I like ramen, pulling pranks with my new foster brother and generally causing chaos wherever I go. Dislike stuffy old guys who think they can run everybody's lives simply because they're old and 'know better'. Oh, and stuck up self absorbed emo pricks. Best jutsu is either the academy replacement one, seriously that thing's just bloody useful, or my new chakra projection but I need to know more seals to properly use it. Haven't really thought about the future either, but lug-head here wants to be Hokage so I'll probably help him with that. Oh, and the best animal in the entire world is the peregrine falcon coz it's insanely fast. That's me done, who's next?"

Not to be outdone Naruto spoke up; "I'm Naruto Uzumaki, Future Hokage, believe it! I love ramen, hate how long it takes to cook, I like training and pranks, hate the stupid council and their pet emo, but like Hokage ojii-san coz he's cool and he's keeping my hat warm for me. My best techniques are the academy transformation and shadow clone, though that one tends to be a bit weird if I make too many and they pop all at once. The greatest animal ever is the dragon, coz it's just awesome."

"Baka, dragon's don't exist!" came the cry from Sakura

"Oh yeah? Prove it!"

"You can't prove that they do! Idiot!"

"I can't prove that smells exist either."

"Smells do exist!"

"No, they could be just tricks of your mind." Harry interjected.

"What?"

"Look," Naruto decided, "lets put it to a vote, all those who say dragons exist raise their hands" Harry, Naruto and twelve newly formed blond shadow clones all raised their hands, "All those against..." Sakura was too stunned to do anything, "therefore by democratic majority dragons exist."

Kakashi just sighed and shook his head _'It'll all be over soon, it'll all be over soon...'_

"Right, moving on, Pinky, your turn."

"But, sensei..."

"You aren't going to change their minds and we don't have time for you to try, now please, your intro..."

"Fine, I'm Sakura Haruno. My dream for the future is to become a strong kunoichi, help restore a certain clan and prove that dragons don't exist. I like a certain someone and dislike these two baka! My academy techniques are good but I don't feel like they are particularly suited to me except for the bushin, but only because Iruka-sensei says that I might be a strong genjutsu user when I get older. I really don't care about animals but the panda is strong and cute, like me, so that'll do."

"Right, now that that's all over with, you have the rest of the day free, report to training ground seven tomorrow at 8 o'clock sharp for your true genin test. Oh, and my advice is don't eat breakfast, you'll just throw it up."

"But, sensei we already had..." Sakura started before she realised that he'd already left. _'Fine, guess I'll just go look for Sasuke-kun, wonder what he's doing now?'_

In the forest surrounding Konoha's training field number thirty six.

"You can ruuuuunn, but you can't hiiiiide."

"ARGH, stupid snake bitch, leave me alone!"

"Oh, Sasuke-kun, you say such hurtful things. Don't make me hurt you back!"

"SHIT! Where are you keeping all these kunai?"

"Are you asking to see under my coat? You naughty boy! Never on the first date!"

"NO! NOT MORE SNAKES!"

"Careful, Sasuke-kun, I wouldn't want to cut off anything important. Not before you've properly thanked me for all the training I'm going to give you."

_'Oh, please god not another fangirl!'_

"What do you reckon she's thinking about?" Naruto asked Harry after Sakura had been staring off into space for a few minutes.

"Like I care, come on, we can get some of our community service done before we go home."

"Yeah, good point, let's go!"

The next morning at training ground seven.

"Bakas, Kakashi-sensei told us _not_ to eat breakfast!"

"Meh, he only said we'd throw it up. I've never thrown anything up in my life!"

"Yeah, plus I couldn't just sit there and watch him stuff his face with so much ramen without joining in myself. At least now we won't be hungry if he's late again."

Three hours later

"We told you so, we told you so, we told you so." The sing-song voices of Harry and Naruto came from the clearing in the centre of the training ground.

"Shut up with that stupid song, what are you six?" Sakura was too hungry to really put up much of an argument, annoyance or no.

"Nope, ten, oh and by the way, we told you so, we told you so, we told you so..."

"Ohayo, everyone," came the unmistakable voice of their new sensei as he appeared on top of one of the logs stood upright in the centre of the training ground, "Sorry I'm late, I was on my way and a black cat crossed my path so I had to take the long way around and I got lost."

"LIAR!" screamed Sakura, her finger pointed indignantly at the man.

"Seriously, sensei, if you're that bad at lying to us what'll you do if you get captured?" Harry asked once the ringing in his ears died down.

"Oh, simple, not get captured." Kakashi waved the question off as if he'd answered it a hundred times. "Now, for your genin tests."

"Sensei, we already took our tests in the Academy."

"Those merely tested potential. This tests your aptitude, if you can't pass then you go back for remedial classes at the academy until you pass a jounin's test. By the way, mine's the hardest, I've never passed a team yet, good luck." He said with an eye-smile. "Now, I have these two bells." He held them up, ignoring the snorts of laughter from the male members of the team. "Your job is to get them from me in order to pass. Whoever does the worst or doesn't have a bell when this timer goes off is tied to one of these posts and gets to watch whilst the other two eat their lunches." That said he tied the two bells to the belt loop of his trousers. "By the way, if you don't come at me with the intent to kill then you'll never get a bell."

His speech done he stepped back from the others and reached behind himself into his kunai pouch. Suddenly he blurred and the next second he was sat on top of Harry and Naruto's heads that had at some point been forced together and into the ground.

"Good initiative, but I didn't say 'go' yet, did I?"

Two muffled voices could be heard saying something that could have been 'no sensei' but also could have been 'damn teme'. Kakashi decided to go with the first one as it meant he wouldn't have to beat the two senseless before they could even fail his test.

"Okay, go!" he said once they had stood up and he finally brought his hand out of his kunai pouch to reveal... a book.

Sakura had disappeared into the underbrush of the forest but Harry and Naruto just stayed and started giving their sensei appraising looks.

"Not gonna hide? You can't beat me in a straight out fight." Kakashi observed as he turned a page in the book.

"You do know I can just put an explosive seal on your forehead or even your eyeball right?" Harry asked

"Yes, but I can disrupt the chakra before you finish and render it useless so that point's moot isn't it? You can't kill me so easily."

"Fair enough, I'm also guessing Naruto's clones in close combat would also be just as easy?"

"Yep, don't feel too bad, you're just genin, neither of you can beat me head on, though I'd be disappointed if you didn't even try. Oh, and whatever you are going to try you'd best get a move on, time's running out."

"Good to know." Naruto said before both of the boys popped in a small smoke cloud.

_'Huh, seal-less shadow clones, henge and evasion skills. Not bad for brats, especially if he only learned that technique two days ago...'_

Elsewhere in the forested part of the training area Naruto briefed Harry on the conversation whilst a squad of blond clones made their way to test out their sensei's taijutsu.

"So he could probably stop any attack that's specifically targeted _on_ him? What about under him?" The black haired shinobi pondered out loud.

"Kunai to move him into position then blow up the ground he's standing on? Might work, but he'd probably see through it." His blond counterpart opposed. "Mobbing him with sheer numbers probably won't work either, you suppose I should send out another clone squad in case the others get popped too quick?"

"Couldn't hurt, we only have a limited time, can't let him get too com... fort... able... he he he."

"What? I know that grin... If this involves blowing me up again, you can forget it, I'm still trying to repress the memories from the Mizuki incident."

"Nah, I wouldn't do that again now that I know what effect it has on you, I'm not that heartless. Not until you find a way to block out the memories you get at least, then we'll talk about mass clone suicide bomber squads of death. Anyway, remember that idea you had with the henge'd kunai? The one you couldn't get to work because they lost their illusion after you threw them?"

"Yeah, so? Oh... Brilliant! Time to officially test Operation Mind-fuck! I've wanted to say that for ages"

Kakashi was not having a good time. After the initial confrontation with Naruto's clones an eight man squad of them had appeared and engaged him in a nine-way brawl. He still had his book out but was unable to keep reading of Natsuko's adventures due to the blond and orange nightmares circling him. He'd dispelled five of them already but the other three seemed to have learned from the first ones and hadn't made any of the same mistakes twice. This was probably the fabled strength of the shadow clone jutsu's learning effect at work. Currently the three had surrounded him in a triangle formation, he managed to keep two in sight at all times despite his eye-coverings but the third always proved illusive no matter which way he turned.

Sudden displacement in the air behind him caused him to whirl around, leg cocked to counter the clone's lunge with a roundhouse kick but the blond ducked under the blow and came back with a sloppy uppercut whilst the other two took the opportunity to close the distance. Fortunately, for Kakashi, his student had left himself wide open and he proceeded to grab the fist of the uppercutting clone and carry on it's momentum in the form of an overhead throw, catapulting him straight at one of his brethren and taking out two with one move.

He smiled at that under his mask. It was a rarity in actual combat to be able to produce a stupendously cool or awesome move and execute it perfectly. Now he only had one more clone to deal with, which would be a cake-walk, before he could actively hunt down the three genin hopefuls. Turning a page in his book he absent-mindedly dodged a series of kunai that came from out of the undergrowth near the trees. Deciding to have a little fun with the last opponent he grabbed one of the projectiles as it passed him by putting his finger through the ring at the base of the handle, twirling it and launching it at his adversary.

His visible eye widened in shock when the kunai poofed half way through its flight and turned into the blonde nightmare. Said nightmare landed before turning with a curious expression on his face, whilst one hand rubbed it's backside. "Sensei? Why did you do that to me? It hurt but felt kind of good as well and made my tummy feel weird..." it asked the now horrified jounin.

He was unable to respond, however as several other kunai erupted from the bushes as well as things that had no business being on the training field. Shakily the man dodged under shuriken, kunai, a lamp post, several small rodents, a TV, two kitchen sinks, a grand piano and what looked like a Beatles Greatest Hits album, all the while staring at his finger with a horrified expression on his face.

Harry and Naruto silently laughed whilst the blonde kept up a steady rain of projectile clones that henge'd into kunai then some random object as he threw them. Harry, still giggling slightly decided to put his earlier idea to the test. Quickly checking for confirmation from Naruto, he proceeded to litter the ground of the training field with explosive seal after explosive seal, adding in his own variations on occasion to see how they'd do when used in conjunction with his chakra projection.

Naruto gave him the go ahead so long as he didn't blow up too many of his clones at once as they, in their various henge'd forms, were still littering areas of the training field. He then formed several 'thrower' clones and told them to spread out and wait for him to send them projectile clones when they had gotten into position. Hopefully that would keep his sensei from discerning their hiding place too quickly.

Looking back out onto the training field he watched as Kakashi ducked under a flying tandem bicycle then dived quickly to the left as Harry's first explosive seal detonated.

Kakashi was quickly getting sick of this. He'd long since had to put away his book and this was just getting more and more ridiculous. First the blond one was mocking him, then he'd started having to dodge everything and anything the man could think of as it came flying from out of the trees, then he'd had to start dodging as random chakra spikes in the ground set off a continuous stream of explosions and finally it seemed the blond had created even more clones to throw all items and sundry at him as he was suddenly avoiding random projectiles from multiple directions. He couldn't even pass them yet and escape this nightmare that way as the two boys had obviously failed to incorporate their other teammate into their plans. Where was she anyway? Is that a little old lady? Did he actually just throw a little old lady at me? Was that last explosion a manure bomb? WHAT THE FUCK?

With a sudden burst of anger this own confusion as well as the boys' lack of respect and propriety the jounin backflipped out of the path of a flying house-cat/refrigerator combo and launched a wave of his own kunai back at most of the hiding places he'd been attacked from, landing on top of the small stream that bisected the training area gracefully. Feeling no chakra spike he guessed that the black haired boy couldn't project a seal onto the water's surface. Smiling slightly he waited to see what they would do next as he surveyed the mess of debris that was once training ground seven, proud that his ANBU skills had gotten rusty in his time since retiring from the corps.

Unfortunately that brief respite was short lived as all of the junk and manure/paint-covered trash that had littered the ground vanished in a great smoke cloud, only to be replaced by blond after grinning blond, all of which stared at him for a second before pulling out a kunai each and charging at him as one.

Kakashi's visible eye twitched as something in the back of his brain went _snap_ before he began to run through an excessive number of hand seals at a blurring pace. Finishing on bird he yelled out; "Water style; Water Dragon!" and laughed in manic glee as his most powerful water technique wiped out wave after wave of the annoying pests.

Seeing that he'd exhausted his supply of targets he let his jutsu collapse. Pulling out a kunai and wielding it in a reverse grip he called with just a little too much manic laughter; "My turn! I'm coming to get you!" before disappearing into the forrest.

"Well, I think Operation Mind-fuck was a definite success." Harry congratulated his teammate.

"Think we went a bit too far?" Naruto asked warily, his mind still feeling a little funny after the influx of memories hit him. Never listen to anyone who says getting hit by the same dragon made of water over two thousand times is fun.

"Nah, he's a jounin, he should be able to handle it after he's calmed down a little."

A sudden scream echoed from a distant part of the forest.

"Okay, maybe we went a little too far." Harry admitted.

"Time to save Sakura-chan?"

"Yep, definitely time to save Sakura, wonder what she's been doing this whole time..."

After the initial bout between Kakashi and Naruto's clones Sakura had determined that she definitely didn't want to go up against her sensei in close combat, so had instead fallen back on her strengths; planning and control. In other words, she began setting up a rather elaborate trap network.

Unfortunately she hadn't taken into account the possibility of her sensei's minor break from reality and so was rather unprepared for him to breeze through every single one of her traps with ease before appearing behind her, his visible eye twitching and slightly unfocussed, and putting her into a genjutsu version of her own hell.

In short order she had seen her Sasuke-kun appear before her and propose to her, before being ambushed and beaten by ninja after ninja whilst she could only stare in shock. Then he had collapsed and looked on the edge of death, before Ino had appeared and somehow healed him, he then confessed his undying love and gratitude to _her_ and the two walked off holding hands and kissing whilst Sakura was forced to watch. That was only in the first second. She'd then been exposed to Sasuke turning into a demon and raping then killing her, Sasuke and her at their wedding before Sasuke turned into Naruto just as the two kissed, Sasuke and Naruto having a wedding, her and Naruto raising a family of tiny little blond Narutos who all demanded her immediate attention, Sasuke getting blown up by Harry, Harry blowing her up, her rejecting Harry, who turned into Sasuke and saying he'd rather go out with Ino instead... The list continued on and on and on until finally she could take no more, she screamed and passed out.

Kakashi giggled evilly before turning and running off to find the others.

Arriving at the scene the two boys gave each other a look that said; 'yep, we might have gone too far this time', before Naruto bent down to check Sakura's pulse and breathing. Standing back up he announced "She's fine, just unconscious. What do you think we should..."

He never finished as a ringing filled the area, indicating the test was over. "Bollocks!" Harry cursed, "Come on, pick her up, we might as well get back. Maybe sensei's come back to his senses now that the test is over."

Fortunately he had. He even looked at the two sheepishly as they arrived, Naruto carrying Sakura over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. When the team had assembled in front of him somewhat warily he scratched the back of his head and apologised. "Sorry about that. You guys did well, you almost managed to complete the test, even if you were lacking a small part. Pinky should be fine too, I just hit her with a few mid-powered genjutsu." He proceeded to crack some smelling salts under her nose that he pulled out of his jacket pocket.

Once Sakura had been awoken he proceeded to debrief them. "Naruto, Harry; well executed tactics and good adapting to the situation, you managed to keep me on my toes and even stressed me out which is a good way to force an enemy to make a mistake, however you saw the inherent danger of doing that to someone more powerful than you and earning their ire. Sakura, that was an impressive array of traps you set up and quickly too, if I hadn't been infuriated to the point that I was and stopped limiting myself then it could have caused me some severe problems in getting to you. Unfortunately none of you managed to get either of the bells nor figure out the true point to this test, though two of you came close. That being the case I'm going to give you all a second chance, but first..." he smiled and held up a piece of rope, "It's lunch time!"

Sakura was very annoyed, first she hadn't even managed to last five seconds against Kakashi because her two teammates had enraged him so... _that_ she could relate to. Second she was still hungry as she hadn't eaten any breakfast which led directly to the third point in that she was tied to a log whilst the other two ate their lunches, which Kakashi-sensei had forbidden them to share with her.

Harry surprised her when he first looked around once their sensei had left before coming over and holding out some of his food for her.

"What are you doing, baka? Kakashi-sensei said he'd fail us if you feed me!" her belly betrayed her as it grumbled in protest.

"Look, we're gonna need all the help we can get to get those bells. Naruto and I tried our best and we couldn't get near him before he snapped on us. Naruto needs all the energy he can get to replace all the shadow clones he made, but all I did was set off a few explosive seals and we've both had breakfast already so it makes sense that I should share my lunch with you. You're gonna need all the energy you can get to help us out. Plus if you don't become a ninja how will you impress your Sasuke-kun?"

"What if sensei catches us?"

"Naruto's got some clones patrolling the area, we can't be sure but we don't think he's nearby..."

"Fine, just hurry up, I'm starving."

Just as Harry began spooning (or rather chop-sticking) rice into Sakura's mouth there was a great yell and blast of wind as Kakashi appeared in a swirl of leaves. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" he demanded.

"We need her," Naruto spoke up, rising to his feet to stand by his brother and first crush, "She's on our team and we can't beat you without her. She can't help if she's hungry, so despite your rules we're gonna help her out and feed her, even if it means failing!"

"RIGHT THEN, IF THAT'S HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT MY RULES, YOU PASS! CONGRATULATIONS!"

"Oh yeah, then we'll... what?"

"You... Pass... Congratulations, you're the first team I've had to show true teamwork in spite of my rules. Those who break the rules are the worst of scum, but those who betray their teammates are even lower than the worst scum imaginable. Now, who wants some proper lunch? My treat... Blondie, you okay?"

Naruto had gone strangely quiet since his outburst. Slowly he raised his head, grinning from ear to ear.

"YATTA!"

**A/N: Just a few points on this last chapter, neither Harry's Chakra projection powers nor Operation Mind-fuck are my own ideas, though I have searched, I cannot find the fiches where they originated and so am unable to give their authors proper credit, if you can find them please email me and I will make sure they are both given the proper respect due for their brilliance.**

**A/N2: I am also looking, once again, not only for a beta reader, but also for a story I read a long time ago, it was quite long, had a powerful and smart seal/puppet-using Naruto and at some point Tenten lost an arm which Naruto replaced with a puppet arm she controlled with internal chakra strings . I'd really like to read this again as at the time I didn't have an account and was unable to put an alert on it, if anyone recognises it could they please let me know?**


	5. Life as Fresh Genin

**A/N: For this fic I am replacing/renaming lightning chakra with light chakra and adding shadow as an element. I feel that this balances out the 'chakra wheel' seen in canon and gives every element an opposite. Lightning jutsu will behave just the same as before. It makes some of the explanations and theories I've come up with in my head work better, that is all.**

"Now, before we get started, I'm going to lay down some ground rules for you three."

It was two days after Kakashi had declared them an official genin team and the start of their first proper training session as Team 7. Naruto and Harry were both ecstatic about getting some real training from a jounin, whereas Sakura was nervous as hell, trying not to think of what might happen on a team with at least two clinically insane and, now, official ninja. The only good thing she'd heard was that her Sasuke-kun would be stopping by occasionally to learn ninjutsu and even more once he'd activated his bloodline for advanced training.

"Now, Harry, Naruto, as of this moment you are not to use either of your kinjutsu without my express permission..." he waited for their groans and shouts of protest to subside before continuing, "not even going into the fact that you obtained them illegally and through questionable circumstances, I will not have you simply learning one or two powerful techniques and then using them as a crutch. You might get lucky and make it to chunin or even special jounin if you do, but if you were to run into someone who could think and strategise quickly or who had a technique to counter yours you would be crushed, quickly and mercilessly. All because you were relying on a single, catch-all strategy or technique. Don't think that I'm playing favourites either because, Sakura, _you_ are getting a massive attitude adjustment that you'll need if you want to survive." Whilst he waited for the message to sink in he dug around in his pouch for some... _'Ah, there they are'_

"Now then," said Kakashi, holding up three pieces of paper, "As I am pretty much a ninjutsu specialist, I shall be training you all in the offensive capabilities of chakra. To that end I am going to need you all to channel a bit of chakra into these slips of paper so that I can train you in your elemental affinities, those can either be earth, fire, wind, water, light or shadow. Naruto, you first..."

Naruto held up the paper Kakashi had given him. At first nothing happened, then the paper turned an inky midnight black, sliced itself in half and crumpled into two little black balls.

Sakura and Kakashi were staring at him in shock. Harry and Naruto just looked incredibly confused. "Er... ok, _that_ I wasn't expecting." Kakashi exclaimed when he had finally broken out of his stupor. "You seemed to have a very strong shadow affinity, at least as high as a Nara, which turned it black, and good wind affinity that cut it solidly in half and light affinity that crumpled the two halves. The unusual thing is that normally people don't attain their secondary or tertiary affinities until their chunin and special jounin ranks. Anyway, Harry, your turn, don't be disappointed if you don't get such a strong reaction..."

Harry lifted the paper to eye level and focused his chakra. All of a sudden the paper split just as Naruto's had but instead of crumpling or blackening, one half burned away, almost singeing his fingers, whilst the other crumbled to dust in his grip.

"So," he began, seeing the doubly shocked expressions on Sakura and Kakashi's faces, "I'm guessing crumbling means earth, the cut is wind and..." his eyes widened at the implications and the joke coming to the forefront of his mind, "Naruto I swear to..." but he was already too late.

"BOOGIE WONDERLAAAAAND!"

"Damn you, you little blonde bastard! Shut up! Stop running away!" *POP* *POP* *POP* "Oh, real mature, hiding behind your clones! Take this; Chakra Projection, Exploding Seals!" *BOOM* "Stop hiding you sneaky little shit!"

"I'm a ninja, it's in the job description." Came the reply from within the forested part of the training field.

Shaking herself out of her shock, Sakura looked at her warring teammates as they both disappeared into the forest and then to their sensei. "Uh... Kakashi-sensei? Are you okay? Shouldn't you be stopping them from using those techniques?"

Coming to just in time to hear; "Don't you dare call me Verdine White!" from the direction of the two boys, Kakashi responded; "I'll get around to it later. Don't tell anyone I told you this, but I _think _I _may_ have bitten off more than I can chew when I agreed to take you guys on as students. Oh well, while we're at it, you may as well check out your affinities."

Sakura's piece of paper ended up about halfway soggy and slightly crumpled.

"Congratulations, Sakura, if it hadn't been for those two I'd have said that was a pretty impressive sight for a genin, however I'm starting to think they shouldn't count when it comes to normality... Both water and light affinities though, that's good going."

"Yeah, congrats Sakura-chan!" came the voice of their blonde compatriot, standing right next to them.

"Naruto, when did you get here, and where's Harry?" Sakura asked, shocked that she hadn't noticed him sneaking up on her.

"I just got here and Harry's..." a mildly irritated twitch appeared on his face, "just dispelling clones on the way back here *shudder* ugh, I always hated Harry-kun's snot-bomb seal and it's even worse when you're the target of it, anyway if you'll excuse me, I have to go before our friendly neighbourhood pop-star hits me with an explosive seal. See ya!"

"Oh, no you don't." Kakashi announced as he grabbed Naruto's collar. "First thing's first, you are going to teach your teammates the shadow clone technique."

"Eh, why sensei?" Sakura asked

"To help you learn, shadow clones have eidetic memories and transfer them to their owner when they are destroyed."

"And to the other clones..." Naruto pointed out.

"Say again, Blondie."

"When my first lot of clones fought you the other day they got better the more you destroyed because they got the memories of what didn't work against you when the others popped."

...

Kakashi pondered the possibilities.

...

"Heh, heh, heh."

...

"Uh, sensei, you okay?" Sakura asked.

"NARUTO! You bastard! I'll kick your... What's up with the scarecrow?" Harry asked, at long last having hunted down the final shadow clones and made his way back to them.

"Nothing, mop-top, I'm perfectly fine, now Naruto here was just about to teach us all the shadow clone technique, weren't you?" Kakashi asked, breaking out of his self induced stupor.

"Uh... yes sensei?"

"Good, now as neither of you have the shadow affinity that Naruto does it might take you a while to get it right and may cost you more chakra to perform, but it'll be more than worth it for cutting down training times. Sakura, this is a fairly chakra draining technique so before you attempt it I want you to show me a chakra pulse just to be sure you have the power to pull it off."

They all turned to Sakura to watch as she built up as much chakra as she could and released it in a pulse that extended a few feet away from her body.

"Good job, Pinky, looks like you should have enough to make one or two clones at once. Don't push yourself though, we don't want you laid up in hospital recovering from chakra exhaustion for the next week. Now, Naruto, the technique if you please."

"Uh," Naruto began, all of a sudden self-conscious at having everyone's attention focussed entirely on him, "I'm not... uh..."

"Just give us a demonstration and talk us through how you do it." Kakashi advised gently.

"Right," he formed his hands into a cross-shaped seal, "This is the main seal, though there's a few others that I find get in the way. I focus some chakra into the shape of my own body, the best way to do this is to focus on the image of your shadow and fill it with chakra, then sort of push the rest of the chakra you want to use inside it. The trick is to keep it flowing like it does when it's in me, if that makes sense. Once I think I've pushed enough in I then let the technique itself handle the rest. You don't have to worry about putting too much into the technique as it splits any excess into more bodies, too little though and it doesn't work and it apparently just dissipates. I've never seen it do that though, the smallest number I've managed to make is around seven but the scroll said I should make one and work up from there."

That said the boy yelled "Kage Bushin no Jutsu!" Suddenly there were eleven Narutos, all in the same stance with the cross handsign held in front of their chests, staring at the three other members of team seven.

Kakashi could have facepalmed at the boy's lack of chakra control combined with insane reserves. Normally a jounin would be able to make twenty shadow clones and still remain combat ready, a genin maybe one or two before becoming tired but if he was to be believed then Naruto could spam eight to ten man teams like it was nothing. He wondered for a minute if it was a byproduct of the Kyuubi or some kind of bloodline the boy had that gave him such massive chakra reserves.

"Okay, thanks for that Naruto, while we work on the technique I want you to start on chakra control exercises. Make as many clones as you think you can without exhausting yourself then i want you to start the tree climbing exercise. You do know that one don't you?"

"Yeah," came eleven voices at once, "Ojii-san gave me and Harry-kun a scroll about it about a year ago, I'm still not very good at it though."

"Okay then, what I want you to do is have all your clones try it at once, each doing things a little differently. After every try I want the ones that did the best to dispel so the others get the memories and then I want you to try again. When you can walk up and down vertical surfaces instinctively then you'll have mastered the technique. At that point I want you to come back here so I can test you."

"Hai, sensei." Eleven voices affirmed their understanding.

"Oh, and leave one clone here that we can ask for advice from while we try and learn the technique.

"Hai, sensei." The voices cried again before a great shout of "SHADOW CLONE TECHNIQUE!" was heard and the clearing was suddenly full of orange clad blond kids. All but one then disappeared into the forest and could be seen running up and falling off of trees, with the occasional pop and puff of smoke to indicate one had dispelled to share its memories of success.

"Right, you two, what are you waiting for?" Kakashi announced, turning to his other students, trying to ignore the blond tidal wave he'd just unleashed on the forests of Konoha.

Several hours later

"Oh, come on, Naruto got this in less than three hours, how the hell is it taking me so long!"

Harry was not a happy bunny.

He was nearing exhaustion, Sakura had needed to stop to rest several times over the past five hours, one of which they'd incorporated into a lunch break. They'd tried to find Naruto to tell him but unfortunately the blond knucklehead had disappeared looking for bigger trees to practice on, taking his clone army with him. They'd told their clone to dispel and send him a message but they hadn't heard anything back from him and Kakashi was starting to get worried.

It was fortunate for the lazy man's sense of duty that his wayward charge showed up just as they were finishing their training session, calmly walking into the field with a stick of something in his mouth.

"Hey, 'Ruto, where've you been? What's that?" Harry asked his brother

"Oh, sorry I kind of wandered a little far and ended up in some place with giant trees and huge animals that wiped out my clones when I was tree-climbing. I thought they'd get me too but then I met a nice lady who gave me some of this," he said in a rather airy voice whilst waving his food at them, "Apparently it's called 'dango' and it's almost as good as ramen, here, try some I've got a whole box."

"Hey, this is good," Harry exclaimed after trying a stick, "What happened with the 'nice lady'? You getting a crush on some hot older woman, bro?"

"Maybe, she wasn't wearing much apart from a cool trenchcoat and she was throwing snakes and kunai at the teme, she even stopped for a second to kill this huge tiger that was going after me and gave me this box of dango." Naruto grinned, his voice still a little weird and his eyes focussed on something behind Harry.

"Ha, sounds like a laugh, can't wait to meet her. By the way, are you feeling okay? No offence but your starting to sound a bit simple."

"Oh, no worries, I just got a few hundred sets of memories at once, now I'm feeling kinda woozy in my head..." he looked over to where Sakura was sat resting, "Pretty hair... I'ma gonna sit down fer a minute." Saying that he proceeded to fall on his backside in the centre of the training field.

At this point Kakashi decided to check on the two. "Everything alright here? You okay blondie?"

"Yeah, Kakashi-sensei," Harry exlpained, "Naruto's just feeling a little out of it after getting his head stuffed full of hundreds of shadow clone memories at once. He also says he's found someplace with huge trees and giant animals that attacked him, but was saved by a scantily dressed woman who was throwing snakes at Sasuke-teme and killed a huge tiger before giving him a box of dango and sending him on his way. If it weren't for the fact that he actually has a box of dango on him and I'd never seen him eat the stuff before I'd have thought he's making it up or had a hallucination of some kind."

"Pretty pink hair..."

"Oh, and he thinks Sakura's hair colour is pretty... wonder if he has some kind of weird unusual-hair-colour fetish, or maybe just an obsession with the colour pink, it'd certainly explain why he's attracted to the banshee over there..."

Kakashi sighed his student's lack of focus "Harry, now is not the time, pay attention. Naruto looks fine but we still don't know how the Kage Bushin technique is affecting his mind, I don't think he's having a hallucination as I think I know the woman he met and probably where he ended up. Either way, I'm going to take him to the Yamanaka compound to get him looked at, you might want to come along as well, just tell Sakura training's over for the day and to meet back here at the same time tomorrow. I'll see you at the Yamanaka's."

With that he hoisted the blond up onto his shoulder and set off towards Konoha's most famous flower shop.

Arriving shortly at the Yamanaka's flower shop Harry was guided to a small sitting room by who he could only assume was Ino's mother. Already present were Kakashi, Naruto, who was lying on a long couch, and a blonde man he recognised immediately.

"Inoiki-san!"

"Hey, Harry-kun, how are those kunai I got you holding up?"

"Great, they're much better quality than the ones I normally get, Naruto loves his too, he's taken to fighting with them in close quarters so as not to lose any."

"Good to hear, anyway as your sensei was explaining to me, we fear Naruto might have had a small incident with his shadow clone memory assimilation."

"Is it bad?"

"It could be much worse, he's still breathing so we know that basic functions are still working and from what you told Kakashi he still has his memory retention and basic speech functions so we know the damage hasn't been too extensive. I'm going to do a mind dive and see what's the matter and if there's anything I can do to fix it. Hopefully it'll just be a bit of exhaustion and it'll go away after a good night's sleep."

"So, are you going in now?" Harry asked, looking over at Naruto, who still seemed fairly out of it as he was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

"Yeah, just as soon as... ah, thanks dear." He graciously accepted a mug of something his wife brought into the room. "This is a special herbal concoction we make out of our flowers and allows us to more easily access others mindscapes without the mental backlash our clan techniques usually involve." The last was directed at an incredulous looking Kakashi; "I might need a bit of a boost to get in there, his... chakra might protest at the intrusion, you know the transfer jutsu?"

"Yes, how much will you need? I have been training today." Kakashi answered, he'd been working on the Kage Bushin just like his students and was only at around half his usual chakra reserves.

"I might not need any, it's just a precaution." Inoiki quickly downed the concoction in his mug, "Ugh, horrible as always, anyway, ready?"

Getting nods from the other two in the room, Inoiki began to run through hand signs, finally stopping on dragon. "Mind Transfer Technique; Mindscape Invasion!" he cried, staring at Naruto's prone body. Suddenly both of them stopped moving and Inoiki slumped back into his seat.

Inoiki opened his 'eyes' carefully, unsure of what to expect. Sure, he'd been briefed on the boy's mental health before, even run a few sly tests in the weeks he'd gone to visit Harry after bringing him to the village, but this was on a whole different level; a full on mental probe into the boy's subconscious.

When no monsters appeared to be about to eat him he relaxed. The mindscape he was in appeared to be a tunnel system of some kind, looking down at the knee high water he was in he came to the quick conclusion that it was, in fact, a sewer. "Awesome" he commented dryly, just because he knew it wasn't real didn't make the prospect of trawling through a sewer any more appealing.

"Guess this means you have a dirty mind, eh, kiddo? No, wait a second... Sewer it may be but dirty it is not... hmm... so subconscious chose a sewer but a clean sewer... thinks lowly of himself but has high personal standards at least." He looked around, noticing pipes lining the ceiling, a blue glow surrounding them. Occasionally a red surge would spread through a section of pipe, which looked to rust for a second before it was overcome by blue once again and the damage would be undone. "Now _that_ is particularly interesting..." he thought as he watched the play of colours repeat itself up and down the pipe networks he could see, "Anyway, I'm not going to find anything just standing around here, now where would Naruto be? Hmm... gotta think like he would, so... What would Naruto do if he came upon this? Wander aimlessly probably... meh, couldn't hurt."

That said he picked a direction and strode off confidently.

"Kakashi-sensei? Is Naruto gonna be alright? Joking aside that is."

Kakashi paused in his vigil over the two to give the boy a soft look. For all the attitude and pranks he was still only a ten year old boy when all was said and done. "He'll be fine, Inoiki's the best there is when it comes to the mind and healing it." He left out 'not to mention breaking it in the first place' as he doubted that'd go down well, either it'd upset the boy or he'd ask for tips. Neither sounded good for Kakashi so he wisely chose to remain silent.

Giving a small nod, Harry continued to watch over his foster brother, grateful and worried for a member of his family for possibly the first time he could remember.

It didn't take long for Inoiki to find Naruto, unfortunately he found rather a lot of him, well over two thousand if he was any guess. He had also found the Kyuubi, unfortunately so had the Narutos. What was happening he would later admit was one of the strangest things he had ever seen. Every single Naruto was trying to fight the Kyuubi at once. To do that they had to get past the bars of its cage. Once they were past the bars there was nothing stopping the huge demon fox from fighting back. Finally every time a Naruto was killed it ended up fading away and a new one would fade into existence near the entrance to the room.

So it went that wave after wave of Naruto clones would charge through the Kyuubi's cage only to be bitten, clawed, stomped or bashed by it's mouth, claws, paws and tails respectively. It was like that night over ten years ago all over again, with one minor difference.

The Narutos would, each time they reappeared, brandish a new and more outlandish weapon or improvised weapon. He spotted two wielding washing machines, a good number with clubs, one had a bicycle in its hands, two more were using a third as a battering ram, there were the occasional swords or sword variations, one was even holding a whip and a chair like a lion tamer at the circus.

He stopped one who was weilding some kind of longsword and had painted half his face blue for some reason; "Are you the original?"

"Nope, clone, I was destroyed by a water dragon from Kakashi sensei."

"Oh, do you know where the original is?" The clone pointed somewhere towards the cage. "That's helpful." The clone merely shrugged, "Fine off with you then." Inoiki dismissed the clone who charged forward yelling "FREEEEEDOOOM!" only to be swatted back into the bars of the cage by a particularly vicious tail swipe.

Using a bit of chakra to give himself some control of the mindscape, Inoiki made his voice several times louder than usual and made it reverberate all over the room.

"WOULD THE REAL NARUTO PLEASE STAND UP?" this was met by the entire mob singing "dah-nah-nah-nah-nah, dah-nah-nah-nah-nah, dah-nah-nah-nah" which was getting no-one anywhere so he tried again; "WHICH ONE OF YOU IS THE REAL NARUTO?" "I'm the real Naruto" was heard, shortly followed by, "No, I'm the real Naruto!", "No, I am!", "I'm Sparticus!" and "I'm Brian and so's my wife!"

_'This could go on all bloody day,'_ Inoiki thought to himself, before trying; "NEVER MIND, WOULD THE REAL NARUTO PLEASE COME OVER HERE?"

Fortunately only one Naruto made its way over towards him.

Meanwhile there was a rather strange conversation going on by the clones near the Kyuubi's left hind-leg.

"Hah, good 'so's my wife' quote back there"

"What quote?"

"You know, from Life of Brian"

"Don't remember... I was talking about my actual wife."

"What? When the hell did you get married?"

"Before we found this cage thing"

"Who did you marry in here? There's only us... you didn't?"

"Yep, the one over there using the sexy jutsu, the honeymoon was awesome!"

"Why would you do that?"

*Shrugs* "Sexy jutsu is sexy."

"No, but I mean when she pops we'll all get the memories of everything you did with her/him/whatever."

"So? Like I said, it was awesome!"

"We'll get the memories from its perspective, idiot!"

"OH GOD! What have I done?"

"PROTECT THE BRIDE!"

Soon the call was taken up everywhere and the clones' focus was changed from attack to defence/VIP-extraction.

With the main Naruto and Inioki.

"What was that all about?" Inoiki asked after the strange battle-cry went up.

"I have no idea, so what's up Inoiki-san?" Naruto asked, looking puzzled "How did you get here anyway?"

"We're worried about you, Naruto, your acting strange in the real world. I used a family jutsu to enter your mindscape to find out what was wrong."

"Oh, yeah, guess I've been kind of focused on things in here since my clones found fuzz-butt over there and pulled me in to oversee things."

"Yeah, about that, what are they doing attacking it over and over again?"

"They're obeying my orders; Trying to defeat it, or wear it down at least."

"Isn't that kind of futile, not even all of the ninjas of Konoha could defeat the thing back when we were at full strength."

"Yeah, but my army just keeps re-spawning over and over again. I have an infinite number of soldiers who never get tired."

"Yes, but the Kyuubi is a chakra construct, as it doesn't have a real body it can't get tired either. What are you going to do, have two immortal forces locked in an epic battle for all eternity in your mindscape?"

"Or it could surrender..."

"What's with the weird weapons anyway?" Inoiki asked, not wanting to dwell on that thought any longer than necessary.

"I'm trying to find what I have a natural proficiency with, whichever clone lasts the longest and is most comfortable with their weapon will decide the weapon I'm going to train with in the real world."

"You really think you could have a weapon proficiency in... is that a toaster?"

"Yeah, owch, that hurt... Besides, the Aburame's weapon of choice is a swarm of bugs. If anything, if I turned out to be a master at refrigerator-fu then not only would I be deadly on the battlefield but it'd also confuse my opponents no end."

"Point taken, and by the way, if nothing else you certainly are a master at Schrodinger-fu if this is anything to go by. So... what's your best weapon so far?"

"That one over there dual-wielding fully grown sabre-toothed-tigers." Naruto indicated a surprisingly agile and effective clone dodging the Kyuubi's jaws.

"I don't think that'd be plausible or even possible outside your mindscape Naruto..."

"Damn, back to tonfas then... so I'm guessing you want me to come out of here then?"

"Yeah, that's not a problem is it?"

"Well, these guys get a little distracted if I'm not around to focus for them. Not many of them have set their personalities yet so they end up kinda susceptible to suggestions."

"Okay, well just leave them some instructions then come out, your brother and sensei are worried about you."

"Alright, gimme a minute and I'll come out of it."

Harry and Kakashi were both relieved when Inoiki began to stir from his his jutsu-induced coma.

Before either could say anything Inoiki spoke up; "He's fine, I think he somehow managed to switch his conscious and subconscious minds around, he says he's going to switch back in a minute, he just needs some time to organise his clones. Apparently once they've given their memories up shadow clones that stick around in the subconscious mindscape start to develop their own personalities, he has them fighting... it... to gain experience and find out if he has any natural weapon affinities."

"Oh," Harry said, "Sounds quite useful, so we should avoid saying things like; 'all you clones are super-powered warriors from the future' then?"

"I think that would definitely be a bad idea, at least if he had some kind of reference to go off. He doesn't read science-fiction does he?"

"Read science fiction? Ha, no way, we watch comedy films a lot for prank ideas though."

"I can tell" came the unified voices of Kakashi and Inoiki, who both looked at each other and then decided they didn't want to know.

Unfortunately for, well everyone who would ever have to deal with Naruto's clones, several parts of that conversation would be fixed into Naruto's subconscious, namely any part it graced with it's wandering attention, so mostly things his brother said. These would just happen to be "...watch comedy films...", "...read science fiction..." and I think you can guess what else. As of that minute the clones in Naruto's mindscape didn't have any super-powered futuristic warriors to base themselves around so nothing really major happened.

Before Harry could do any more damaged, Naruto suddenly brightened and took in his surroundings. "Hey, where are we, Harry? Kakashi-sensei? Inoiki-san?"

"Hey, Naruto, we're in Inoiki-san's house. You okay?" Kakashi asked his student.

"Fine, sensei, just hungry and a little tired."

"Okay, from now on no accessing your mindscape without telling us or having Inoiki-san nearby got it?"

"Yes, sensei."

"Good, training tomorrow, same time, same place, no missions today after your little episode, we'll start our first one tomorrow afternoon. Remember, no using your special techniques without my say so, got it?" Nods "Good, see ya tomorrow, thanks for this Inoiki-san." he turned to the man as the boys gave their goodbyes

"No problem, I'm kind of assigned as Naruto's mind-doctor anyway incase... you-know."

"Good to know, by the way, Harry knows about the Kyuubi."

"What? You've had me dancing around the subject the whole time and he already knows?"

"Ja-ne, you never asked, cya."

Two weeks later

"Okay, guys just remember, this is your first go at catching Tora, I don't know how it's taken this long for the mission to free-up but it's a sort of genin right of passage to have to hunt this cat as one of your first D-Rank missions. You've completed ten so far already so you should, in theory, have the experience needed to take him down, but don't get cocky or we could be at this all day." Kakashi gave his team their usual pre-mission pep talk. He was really looking forward to seeing how Harry and Naruto's pranking would go when not directed at him. _'Either they or the cat is gonna suffer big time,'_ he thought as they set off to begin the search, _'oddly enough I don't feel too bad about either... hmm... that can't be a good sign.'_

Kakashi had told his team to go away and think about what kind of training they wanted to get out of him and the results were already showing.

In the two weeks since Naruto's breakdown he'd been trying to use Kage Bushin as little as possible, focussing instead on mainly ninjutsu, he'd also gone to Kakashi about getting some weapons training but still couldn't decide on which style fit him best. Kakashi had thought about sending him to Guy for a taijutsu evaluation but that would be breaking the unwritten sensei code; 'Never admit you are inferior to another sensei, especially your rival.' Still, if he couldn't decide on a style soon he'd have to bite the bullet and go looking for the spandex clad fitness freak.

Harry had shown a marked improvement in sealing after Kakashi had found some old scrolls on the subject in the Jounin library section. Harry still wasn't allowed to use his Chakra Projection without express permission and that was only to test new seal's potency and to keep his skills in it from regressing. He had also asked to have his taijutsu style completely reevaluated and changed from the academy style to something requiring more speed and dodging than strength and blocks.

Sakura's new training programme was to build up her chakra reserves and strength. She'd requested genjutsu training and Kakashi had provided her with the few D-class and C-class ones he knew and had promised to teach her a B-class one if she managed to get the others down. Both her and Harry had benefitted from the Kage Bushin exercise but she got the most out of it as making a single clone gave her a pretty decent chakra capacity workout. That also allowed her to double her studying time and Kakashi was thinking of sticking her in the medic training programme once she became chunin. For now he had her looking up pressure points and studying anatomy. If she couldn't match the other two in stamina then Kakashi'd figured that giving her a more technical fighting style would allow her to challenge her teammates taijutsu better.

Now the results of two weeks of resetting their skills from the academy styles were about to be unleashed on a very angry, vicious and stubborn ball of fur. Kakashi almost wished he'd brought popcorn.

An hour into the hunt their prey was sighted.

"Scarecrow, this is Panda Bear, I have visual on the target, a mile south of training ground 53 and a half a mile east of the village wall, what are me orders? Over."

"Panda Bear, this is Scarecrow, hold position we're coming to you, keep your eyes on the target, eta two minutes. Out."

Three shadowy figures stalked a fourth silently through the woods. They kept to the shadows until the fourth broke cover, still unaware of its followers. Moving slowly it came to a small clearing where the sun shone through the forest canopy overhead. As it moved slowly into the light a gasp and a groan could be heard and before anyone could stop him a dark haired figure appeared in the clearing.

"YOU! My eternal rival! At last we meet once more in open combat! Now I finally have your name we may greet each other as true adversaries, Tora-teme!"

Naruto had his head in his hands as he watched his brother square off against a cat, who actually also got into what could be called a cat fighting stance. "Why? Why this cat? Why now? Every pissing time, the same fucking thing! Why?"

"Uh... Naruto? What's going on?"

"Harry and... well Tora I guess... have this kind of vendetta thing between them. Don't ask me, I don't know how it started and Harry won't tell me, he just keeps saying 'ask the cat' whenever I bring it up. Either way he hates the cat almost as much as the cat hates him. Every time they meet this happens." Naruto explained pointing out at the clearing where the two opponents had begun to charge at each other, claws and kunai extended.

"Currently it's 42-39 in Harry's favour but Tora's on a winning streak of five in a row."

"Um... shouldn't we, you know help?"

"Not unless you want them both to turn on you, trust me I've tried, we can just hope Harry wins so we can finish the mission or that Tora doesn't send him to the hospital... again."

Said combatants were locked in each other's holds; Harry had a kunai ready to stab through Tora's eye but the cat had its claws poised at the boy's throat. Through silent agreement both broke their holds and retreated to a safe distance.

"MREOW!" came the cat's surprisingly loud battle cry as it charged once more, claws extended to their fullest as it went for Harry's hamstrings.

Harry laughed as he leapt over the cat and launched a barrage of shuriken at almost point-blank range. Tora proved to be quicker than expected, however, and managed to dodge all but a few of them, one of which nearly went all the way through its tail.

Harry landed and immediately had to duck beneath the flying ball of furry death as it tried to decapitate him. As it was the beast managed to rake several claws across the top of his head and rip out a chunk of hair.

Kakashi was struggling to think. On the one hand he was wondering why this always happened to him. On the other hand he wondered if he and Guy looked as ridiculous when they squared off. Running out of hands he then wondered on the one foot if he could claim some kind of mental health bonus for working with insane students. Finally on the other foot he wondered if this was all some kind of elaborate genjutsu Kurenai had put him in for reading his books in public again. Having run out of limbs to wonder on he decided to just go with it and make sure he brought popcorn the next time they went on a new mission.

In the clearing the two combatants were breathing heavily, battered and unmistakably worse for wear. Tora's fur was matted with sweat and blood, not to mention missing in places and had several sharp instruments poking out of it in other places. Harry was missing a large chunk of hair, his muscle shirt was stained with sweat and his jacket had some less than stylish tears in it, the back of his hand was bleeding from where it had brushed against the shuriken still lodged in Tora's tail and he was favouring his right leg.

"Time to step this up, what do you say?" Harry commented and after receiving a small glare from the cat, which he took to be acceptance, shouted to Naruto; "'Ruto! Sword!"

A steel katana came whirring out of the underbrush, a transformed Naruto clone. Harry caught the spinning blade in a reverse grip, looked at it for a second before shouting back; "Not that sword, the other one!"

*sigh* "Fine, here!" Naruto's voice came from the underbrush, shortly followed by a large broadsword with a decorative cross-guard and pommel.

Harry caught this sword, dropping the katana as he did so, before raising it above his head and yelling for all to hear;

"By the power of Grayskull!"

...

"Would it kill you to transform into a puma with a saddle or something just one time?" Harry asked Tora after exactly nothing happened. The cat merely blinked at him, somehow managing to look as bored and incredulous as a cat in a battle stance possibly could.

It was then that the discarded katana poofed up in a plume of smoke to reveal a Naruto clone, who promptly charged at the distracted cat, intent on finishing the mission once and for all. He was met by the simultaneous strikes of both paw and foot and sent flying into a tree where he exploded with minimal grace and much embarrassment.

Both cat and boy eyed the broadsword Harry was still holding with a warning look. If a sword could laugh sheepishly it would have, instead it turned a lightly redder shade of grey for a brief instant.

Harry faced his opponent, a light breeze ruffling his hair and parting the front of his frayed jacket, carrying the scent of cat, sweat and blood through the forest. The sun shone down into the clearing and glinted off of the metal of his headband and the sword he held aloft. The dirt beneath his feet ground against the treads of his boots as he shifted his stance ever so slightly.

He felt it then.

The sun's fire, the gentle wind, the rough earth. His elements, his affinities. For one startling second he was centred in amongst them all and experienced their untamed power in all its inexpressible majesty.

Just as swiftly it was gone and he was reeling, drunk from the sensory overload and mentally rebelling at this feeling of being closed off from that wealth of sensation. As if a man, born blind, were to be given sight for one nanosecond. Years later that would be how he described the feeling.

In his present, however, he would describe the feeling to be more akin to pain, as his opponent had chosen his moment of weakness to launch a flurry of attacks. A sloppy haymaker sent the cat into a brief retreat before it came forward with another flying claw strike.

On a whim Harry executed a replacement technique, with the approaching cat. Instantly the two switched places and Harry was left facing an empty half of the clearing, whilst Tora was left facing tree-bark at an unhealthy speed with no way to stop. Harry quickly spun around and his eyes appeared to flash briefly through a multitude of lines, kanji and symbols before settling. The trunk of the tree Tora was heading towards lit up briefly with the same seal before a viscous green substance seemingly exploded out from it and encased the cat as well as an area eight feet across around it.

Naruto walked out from behind a tree shortly followed by Sakura and Kakashi when they saw that Tora wasn't moving from within the trap. Slowly the orange-clad ninja approached the substance, sniffed it, poked it with a finger which set it wobbling, finally he put a piece in his mouth. "Lime!" he declared and proceeded to scoop up bigger chunks to eat. "How'd you make a lime jelly seal Harry?"

"No idea, I was going for vanilla custard. Apparently the seals for them are similar enough that I made a mistake."

"Baka! They're nothing alike, how could you mix them up?" came Sakura's protest.

Harry sighed and projected a seal onto a tree trunk in front of the group. Kakashi tensed to jump back before he realised that it wasn't activating. Harry poured a bit more power into his technique and made it glow brighter. "This is a basic energy to matter conversion seal. Wave modifiers, chakra focusers, energy converters," as he said this different parts lit up to show what he was talking about, "essentially it is a heavily modified exploding tag in that it takes chakra converts it into a different kind of energy, makes it physical and then expels it. The main part that me and Naruto tweak to change our exploding tags and make different ones is this part here." A piece in the upper right hand section lit up as the rest of the seal faded away. "At the moment it is set for pink paint," suddenly the seal shifted, a few lines merged and one changed its angle slightly, "now its a manure seal," it shifted again, a thick line split into two and one of the circles thickened slightly "and finally here's mucus or the snot bomb as we call it."

The glowing symbols faded from the tree trunk, leaving no sign it was there. "We found those," Harry continued, "Through trial and error, writing out explosive note after explosive note, changing things one piece at a time and we still have no idea how the final effects will be altered if we so much as change the angle of a line by a degree. It's not so much the case of writing out 'lime jelly please' as it is of playing charades whilst hog tied."

Harry then rounded on Sakura, his face a mask of annoyed indignation; "We found that if you extend one line by half an inch in the expulsion array the seal will explode in a cone out of either side of the note instead of in a sphere all around it. If you can explain that to me in a way that makes perfectly logical sense then I will be happy to take your criticism on board, but until then butt out of things you can't even hope of understanding!"

With that he took out a scroll, projected a storage seal on to it, sealed away the cat and jelly encasing it and headed off to the Hokage tower to hand it in.

Naruto gave Sakura a pitying look before taking off after his brother. Sakura just stood there stunned that the boy had yelled at her. While she knew that Harry didn't really like her much, he'd always stayed quiet, either because he knew Naruto liked her or because he preferred to just ignore her.

Kakashi walked up to her and patted her on the shoulder; "Don't worry, Pinky, I'll talk to him."

_'And maybe get him some books on sealing theory from the library.'_ he thought before taking off after his two male charges. He was worried, not only about Harry's outburst, but also about how the daimyo's wife would take to find her cat had been trapped in enough jelly to render it immobile and then sealed into a piece of paper. Could living things even survive in a seal? Could it survive whilst encased in jelly for so long? _'Meh, I'll find out when I get there.'_


	6. Wave Arc 1

Team 7 were not having the best day. It had all started that morning and had only gotten worse since. In between Harry and Naruto's constant grumbling about the drunken pervert they were escorting on their dull C-rank mission, Sakura's whining about not being with her Sasuke-kun and Tazuna indignantly complaining about the children he was being escorted by not measuring up to his standards of ninja, it was of little surprise that Kakashi had once again sought refuge in his favourite orange book.

Naruto had tried to alleviate some of the boredom by singing.

"Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness,

But when the ball was over there were four and twenty less." Happened to be the cleanest verse he knew.

Unfortunately his choice of lyrics annoyed Sakura since she was unfamiliar with any historical party at any place named Kerrymuir and assumed Naruto was just making up rude verses of a song to annoy her¹. That had led to the team being ambushed by a pair of chunin whilst they were distracted, whom Kakashi had dealt with personally when his team had frozen in shock. They'd decided to carry on with the mission despite it now being bumped to a B-rank, Harry and Naruto both wanting to prove themselves to their Jounin sensei and Sakura being too stunned from the encounter to disagree with the two.

Since then they had upped the pace to as fast as they could physically go without leaving themselves open for another ambush and without overtiring themselves. Along the way the mood had been brought down steadily as Tazuna informed them of the condition his country was in and the real threat this Gato had become to their way of life.

Harry's comments of "Mmm... Cake" whenever Gato's name was mentioned went largely ignored.

Naruto decided to change the topic of conversation and moved to walk next to Sakura. "Sakura-chan," he began tentatively, remembering Harry's advise on how not to get hit by the pink-haired girl, "Remember Kakashi-sensei's bell test? Well, Harry & I have been thinking and we think we've come up with a few good teamwork attacks, but we need your help for a few..." he smiled as Sakura's face switched from its usual look of annoyance when he spoke to her to one of curiosity.

Kakashi and Harry shared a look when their teammates began talking and the jounin held up three fingers with a slight eye-smile that showed when he was grinning under his mask. Harry checked his watch, looked over at the pair and held up five fingers and a twenty ryo note. Getting a nod from his sensei he pocketed the money once more and turned to watch the results. Tazuna looked at them questioningly until they motioned to watch the two kids in front.

Four and a half minutes later the forest was rent with the sound of a mighty impact and the scream of "BAKA!" as Sakura's punch sent Naruto slamming into a tree at high speed and her furious yell threatened to deafen anyone within earshot. Kakashi checked his watched and, sighing, handed Harry his winnings. Seeing the shocked look on Tazuna's face, Harry commented; "And that's why we don't annoy the pink one."

"Is he gonna be okay?" asked the bridge builder, pointing to where Naruto was struggling to extract his head from the ruined tree trunk.

"Yeah, he's fine, guy heals faster than I do and that's saying something. Give him ten minutes to regrow his teeth and pop his jaw back into place and you'll hardly notice he was injured. Give him a good night's sleep and he'll be better than new, the healed stuff actually becomes stronger than it used to be. I think it's a bloodline or something but since no-one knows who his parents were we can't confirm it." Harry responded before going to help his teammate. One swift kick to the other side of the tree and the whole thing splintered and crashed to the ground beside the two, finally allowing Naruto his freedom.

"Thanks, bro." Naruto grinned at Harry before turning back to look around. "Hey, is it me or is this place getting all blurry?"

"How hard did she hit you?" Harry smirked back before noticing it himself. "Huh, looks like mist. Aren't we still in Fire Country?"

Quickly realising their predicament, they raced towards the group, who were now slightly ahead of them on the path. Just as they approached the back of the group, Sakura had just noticed the mist as well and was pointing it out to Kakashi. That was when Harry heard it, the faint sound of a kunai or shuriken approaching only deeper, heavier. "Get DOWN! Naruto, whip!" he screamed as he launched himself over the heads of the three in front.

Reacting instantly, Naruto complied as they had trained to for hours back in Konoha. Now in the field, the movements fell into place automatically as he launched himself faster and slightly higher than his foster-brother, grabbing hold of his ankles as he passed over him.

Harry saw his target approaching out of the mist, spinning parallel to the ground and grabbed hold of it just as he felt Naruto grab onto his ankles and begin to roll forward. Finally getting a look at their opponent's weapon, Harry was shocked at the sheer size and weight of the sword he had grabbed. He still tried, despite the effort to incorporate the blade's spin into his own arc of movement but the sheer momentum of the thing made it almost impossible.

Naruto completed his froward roll and, bringing his feet down, was almost wrenched backwards as Harry caught the projectile. Despite its weight he still managed to land the manoeuvre and, using his own momentum, whip Harry, sword and all, over his head and forward.

Harry grinned as he felt Naruto almost throw him forward as they had practiced. The monster sword was no longer dragging him back and, whipping his arms forward as well, the two of them effectively managed to send the sword, spinning vertically this time, straight back where it came from. Feeling the pressure around his ankles released he somersaulted forwards once to land, grinning like a maniac, in front of Naruto, facing the direction the sword had just disappeared in.

"Is it just me," Naruto asked as he stepped forward with a grin to match Harry's, "or did we just catch a ten foot bastard sword and throw it back at its owner?"

"Damn straight, we are so badass it might just be illegal." Harry responded, before turning to see the shocked faces of their teammates and escort. "Whaddaya think Kakashi sensei?"

"Yeah...um... Just remember, whoever threw that away might be a little pissed at getting it back." Kakashi admonished them shakily whilst thinking; _'I know that sword from somewhere...'_ "Not only that but you leapt headlong into danger, literally, without knowing what you were up against. Great teamwork though, so overall, I'm gonna give you guys a B minus."

Deeper in the forest, at the centre of the sprawling and thickening mists, a wide eyed jounin level ninja looked to his left slowly to confirm what he thought he had just seen. Sure enough, his sword, which he had just thrown at the approaching bridge-builder and his bodyguard, was buried to the hilt in the next tree over from his position. Deciding that this mission would require more than the usual modicum of stealth he began pumping more chakra into his Hidden Mist Technique, whilst at the same time trying to free his weapon from the tree and hoping that that smart-mouthed apprentice of his hadn't seen what had just happened.

In another part of the forest a masked child wearing the garb of a hunter nin had collapsed against the base of a tree and was struggling to breathe due to an acute and pronounced case of the giggles.

Mist swirled around the group in ever thickening coils that seemed to drain the very colour out of the world. Kakashi immediately went on to high alert that was quickly justified by his two hyperactive genins' cries to duck. He grabbed Tazuna and his remaining student and quickly threw them all to the floor. What he hadn't expected to happen was a giant cleaver of a sword to come spinning at them out of the mist. What he _really_ hadn't expected to happen was his two hyperactive genin to leap over him one after the other, grab said sword out of mid air and using an impressive show of teamwork and strength, hurl the flying monstrosity back where it had come from. It wouldn't do to let them get complacent after that though, so he quickly dampened their mirth with his analysis of the faults in their technique. All the while he was trying to place where he'd seen that sword before. He couldn't be sure if it was through personal experience or from a photograph or description of some kind. Either way did nothing to ease his nerves as he knew that the owner, if he hadn't been hit by the thing on its return flight, would be sure to try something sneakier next time, hence the, obviously chakra produced, mist.

Naruto, on the other hand had a prank in mind, after seeing his opportunity arise after landing the combo technique in the ever encroaching mist and, being the sneakiest of the group of genin, promptly vanished from sight.

Harry only discovered his foster-brother's disappearance when he heard a rather deep voice seem to emanate from the mists themselves. All through the section of forest they were walking in could be heard the phrase; _"__**PIE JESU DOMINE,**__"_ to which Harry immediately thought _'He wouldn't, would he?' _Just to be safe he raised his arms almost instinctively to protect his face.

_"__**DONA EIS REQUIEM!**__" _came the final line of the quote and Harry was still in denial over what he was hearing. After several seconds where nothing happened he lowered his arms from where they had been guarding his face to look around. *WHACK* The sound of a wooden board hitting flesh, in this case Harry's forehead, echoed throughout the forest, shortly followed by his cry of "BASTARD! I'll get you for that, come back here!"

"Harry, Naruto, cut it out, there may still be enemy in the area, everyone on full alert, diamond formation around the target." Came the distracted orders of their sensei, swiftly bringing the two boys back into line. "And if I hear one word about burning Sakura you're both on report."

Ignoring the cries of "But she's a witch!" and Naruto once more getting punched out by the pinkette, he went back to examining their surroundings, looking for a clue as to the location of their mysterious assailant, though he did have to chuckle at Harry henge-ing into a newt before 'getting better'.

There was distinct silence as the group made its way through the thick forests towards the shoreline of Fire country. Not only was the unnatural mist still present, it was getting thicker all the time. By the time they made it to the shore Kakashi was sure he'd spotted the source of the mist several times as brief, fleeting glimpses of a tall person with an even larger sword on his back, but every time he'd looked the image would be gone. Still, he was sure whoever it was had been following them for some time now.

The boat journey to the island of Wave was extremely tense even as the mist grew thicker still, until Kakashi was struggling to see even the other end of the small boat clearly.

Just as they disembarked and the boatman had turned to row away he felt it. A sudden chakra spike behind him and he ducked, spinning with a kunai already out and stabbing at the presence behind him. He failed to get a good look at their features however as the figure fell apart and splashed at his feet as water. "Shit!"

A kunai suddenly buried itself in Kakashi's back before he himself turned into water and splashed to the ground, appearing next to Tazuna, his kunai drawn and hitai-ate pulled up to reveal his left eye, red with three extra, comma shaped pupils.

"So..." came a deep resounding voice from within the mist, "Copy-nin Kakashi, master of a thousand ninjutsu. I am impressed, and honoured to find myself with such an infamous opponent, even more so that you would deign me such a threat to use your sharingan."

"Water clones, Hidden Mist technique, and I'm assuming that giant sword from earlier was yours as well... Why don't you come out and face me; Zabuza Momochi, Demon of the Bloody Mist."

"Very good, I see you keep up with the Bingo books as well, but why should I after I went through all the trouble to set this mist up? The Silent Killing technique is my speciality after all, and with such a dangerous opponent such as yourself, I think it'd be better for me to go all out, don't you think? If you don't want to fight me though, you could just step aside. The bridge builder is my target, not you, after all..."

"Not on your life, though I think I have a way of cancelling out your mist jutsu."

"Oh, really? Do tell..." The voice came from behind Kakashi and he stabbed it with his Kunai without even turning around, knowing it'd be another clone sent to distract him anyway.

"Naruto. A Chakra Pulse, if you please?"

Naruto nodded and began to build up chakra in a ball in his belly just as Sakura had told him to.

"Hah, pinning your hopes on a genin? How the mighty have fallen Kakashi, no matter how much chakra the boy has he'll never be able to blow away enough..."

"CHAKRA PULSE!"

There was a sound like a wumph and a slight tingling feeling as Naruto's chakra passed though them all and spread out in a dome around him. The chakra enriched mist that shrouded the area reacted badly with the foreign energy and was repulsed. A normal genin could manage a dome of about a foot or two as Sakura had in their initial training session. A jounin with vastly superior reserves could probably create a pulse that could be felt around half a mile away, much less so under the pressure of removing a foreign-chakra-enriched substance from the air. Naruto blasted his chakra out in a wave that could have disrupted a strong genjutsu halfway into the southern part of fire country.

To say a shocked and googely-eyed Zabuza was now clearly visible standing a few feet away on the, now mist free, shoreline was a severe understatement.

Zabuza was in shock, was this kid real? Had he fallen into some elaborate genjutsu? The brat looked to have more chakra than most _jounin_ he could name! He kept an eye on the boy just in case he decided to pull something.

"What's your business here, 'Demon of the Mist'?" Kakashi asked, placing himself in front of his charges, kunai held in ready, reverse grips.

"The fat drunk in your company has been marked for death by my employer so if you'll move out of the way I won't bother you or your pretty little runts any," he held up two fingers in a familiar sign, "nukenin's oath." He finished with a mocking grin, partially hidden by his mask of bandages.

"Sorry, 'Demon', my employer has marked this one for protection, so it seems you'll just have to go on your way."

"Ah, can't do that I'm afraid, so it looks like we're at a conflict of interest, eh Kakashi-teme?"

While all this was going on Naruto had started to form an idea. Schooling his features into a look of pain/pity he waited for Kakashi to call their enemy a demon again before he spoke up.

"It's not nice being called a 'Demon' is it, Zabuza-san?" he asked

Confused, the mist ninja turned to face the orange-clad boy. "What the hell are you talking about kid?"

"People call me a 'Demon' all the time. 'Monster' and 'Devil-child' as well. It hurts. I can tell it hurts you too. You need a hug." With that the boy started to approach the nukenin with his arms outstretched in front of him as if to hug the man.

"Gah, get away from me, freak." Zabuza cried as he attempted to dodge out of the way of the fast approaching genin. "What the hell are you teaching these kids Hatake-teme? Hatake... Shit diversion!" he cried as he span around, just in time to catch Kakashi's kunai swipe to his neck with his sword.

"Wow, great work on the uptake there, sensei. I thought I was gonna actually have to hug the bastard before you realised it was a chance to strike." Naruto deadpanned as he quickly retreated back to his teammates.

"Give me a..." Dodge "Break, Naruto..." Duck "You pulled that out of..." Dip "Nowhere and expect me to..." Dive "Anticipate you're just..." Dodge "Improvising a distraction?" Kakashi asked as he attempted to fight the swordsman using only a kunai and his sharingan.

Kakashi and Naruto were busy fighting/distracting Zabuza but Harry was deep in thought, where had he seen this guy before? The face mask/bandages looked like Kakashi's, but if you took it away then... "Holy shit! It's MC Hammer! Why did you bleach your skin?"

Elsewhere, observing from afar a shinobi dressed as a hunter-nin collapsed from silent laughter.

Back in the clearing Zabuza was seeing red. These mere genin had mocked him, first when they'd thrown his precious Kubikiri Houcho back at him, secondly when that blond brat had tried to distract him and now this insignificant whelp had the gall to stand there doing the 'Running Man'. "I'll kill you brats! Slowly, and as painfully as I can, they won't be able to identify your corpses when I finally string you up for the crows to pick at, do you hear me?"

"Remember, you'll have to go through me first, Zabuza-san," Kakashi pointed out, "though I do sympathise. Think on this, as their sensei I have to put up with both of them on a near daily basis. Naruto, Harry, what did I tell you about driving someone stronger than you to the point of insanity?"

"Uh... that it's a cathartic and fun way to pass the time?" the blond posited

"No, that it's extremely dangerous and hazardous to your health. Naruto, are you good enough to do your clones?"

"I think so."

"Good, then if you wouldn't mind, a series of intricate and elaborate distractions wouldn't go amiss."

Naruto grinned and turned to Harry as a look of shock and horror appeared on Zabuza's face as he realised _'They've been holding back?'_ which was further compounded when Naruto said "Operation Mindfuck?"

Harry's response; "Sounds like a plan, I want to try the 'He's Everywhere' trick out though, so you're on your own for the most part" really didn't help Zabuza's nerves any. Not only did he have to fight Hatake 'Copy-Nin' Kakashi and his damned sharingan, but two _genin_ had been told by the man to distract him. Either the guy had way too much confidence in these brats or they were better than genin had any right to be. The way the two were grinning was _not_ assuaging his fears any. The time to contemplate his situation disappeared suddenly as Kakashi leapt back into the fray, his twin kunai swinging in short, controlled arcs.

"I hope you don't think either of those two brats can do anything against me do you?"

"You'd be surprised, they shocked me enough times the first day I met them and the first time I fought them their tactics nearly drove me insane. I actually snapped and went all out on them before they stopped, even then I think I came close to killing the little bastards, oh by the way, there's an inflatable sheep behind you."

Zabuza scoffed until he felt something approaching him from behind and ducked in time to see that an inflatable sheep, as well as a lamp post, a small bush and a rabid chihuahua sail past where his head had once been. He stiffened as a kunai stabbed him in the back of the neck before a splash of water revealed him to be a mist replacement.

Kakashi, now behind where the man had once crouched also disappeared, this time to be replaced by a log, as a giant swing of his opponent's sword threatened to cleave him in two.

"Besides," he carried on as if nothing had happened, "they aren't supposed to do more than keep your attention, your real opponent is still me."

In truth Kakashi was getting worried. He was tiring from his use of the sharingan and his opponent, despite having his concentration divided between himself and Naruto's antics, _'What is Harry doing anyway?',_ was still putting up a decent fight. He tried moving on to ninjustsu but his underground decapitation technique only managed to snag a water clone.

He was caught off guard as he looked around for the real Zabuza and was batted aside by the flat of the man's giant blade. That was when Harry showed up.

Kakashi looked up from his place on the ground to see Zabuza spinning and twisting like mad in a desperate series of punches and kicks, unable to bring his sword into range quick enough as Harry appeared to dance around the man, raining attacks of his own whilst dodging the larger man's blows.

_'No way, he'd have to be as fast as Guy to... Oh, he's using replacement, but so fast and frequently, what's he replacing himself with?' _Kakashi felt a strange breeze and his sharingan noted the strange way the air moved around the pair. _'No way! He's using the air as his replacement material?'_

The way the kawarimi or replacement technique worked was to take an object of similar mass or size to the user and switch the two, the greater the difference in mass or size the more energy was used in the technique to compensate. Harry's use of the air as a replacement material was unprecedented because to counter the large size/weight difference a large amount of air or a large amount of energy would need to be used. Not only was he using the technique frequently to seemingly appear to be all around Zabuza at once he was also going down the conservative route of using a lot of air and concentrating it into the gap he left in space when he used the technique, effectively substituting his own mass with the same mass of air concentrated into the space his body once occupied.

Zabuza was severely pissed off, not only could he barely follow this boy's movements whenever he changed position, but also whenever he went to counter a strike, the boy just disappeared and he was left punching what felt like a small explosion. How was the boy so fast? It was almost like he was just teleporting from place to place and the only ninja who had ever been reported to do that was... No they wouldn't would they? This couldn't be...

It was then that he got a lucky hit and his sweeping roundhouse kick managed to connect with the boy's jaw just as he appeared in a crouch ready to attack from below. As the boy sailed away he yelled at his jounin opponent, also dodging a flying sedan chair that soared out of the underbrush. "Hey, you bastard, how the hell did a _kid_ learn one of your Fourth's techniques?"

"Oh, that wasn't the Hiraishin." Kakashi admitted, already running forward to engage in close combat once again. "However, I can imagine it's where the technique started. Give him a few years and he'll probably try and remake it himself, Harry-kun is already a bit of a seal prodigy."

"OI!" Came the shout from where Harry had landed. "Stop giving away my attack styles! What kind of ninja are you?"

"Your sensei, now either help me out or defend Tazuna." Kakashi yelled, dodging a mist clone's attacks before reducing it to nothing with a small lightning jutsu.

He looked around for the original and spotted him stood on the water several yards from the shoreline. Charging chakra to his feet, Kakashi leapt onto the water's surface and rushed back into taijutsu range before the nin could initiate a water jutsu.

Harry had rejoined Sakura next to Tazuna and watched as his sensei and their enemy converged out to sea.

"Holy shit!" he exclaimed "They're walking on freakin' water!"

"Dumbass, that's a common shinobi technique." Sakura berated the boy on instinct. "Why so interested anyway?" she asked when he continued to watch them with a look of intense concentration on his face.

"Just wondering how the world would react if it turned out Jesus was just some nukenin that wound up in Israel. If he was he could probably have pulled off most of his miracles with water walking, replacement techniques, some sealing scrolls and a few medical jutsu... Coming back from the dead is hard to explain though... Guess he couldn't be then..."

"You think some weird things sometimes." Sakura stated.

"Hey guys, what're you talking about?" Naruto asked as he appeared beside the couple.

"Religion" Harry answered.

"Oh, did you tell her about my theory of anthropomorphic personified Bonewitism."

"What?"

"He believes that gods are shaped by the perceptions of their believers and have only as much power as their worshipers think they do."

"So that's his religion? Anthro...whatever?

"Nah, he's a Neo-Pagan-Norse-Revivalist."

Sakura stared at Naruto with her mouth agape.

Unsure why she was staring so incredulously Naruto merely waved and said "Yo" in his best Kakashi imitation.

"Just don't get into any in depth conversations about Loki, Thor or the Allfather and you should be okay." Harry reassured her. "I've persuaded him not to try and start Ragnarok until he has the power of Mjolnir to back him up and really, what are the chances of Naruto of all people stumbling onto the most powerful legendary hammer of all time?"

Deciding she really didn't want to think about that she pointed to their lazy sensei and the group turned back to watch as two giant dragons made of water cancelled each other out over the heads of the two combatants, coating them in a fine spray of sea-water.

"Think we should help him?" Naruto asked his brother.

"You can't swim, neither of us can walk on water and I can't put a seal on water at all nor either of the two without them disrupting it."

"What if you swim and I stand on your head?"

"What if I bury you with sensei's decapitation jutsu and stand on _your_ head?"

"That wouldn't help us get nearer to help them though."

"No, but I would enjoy it immensely."

"You could put a seal on a kunai."

"Yeah but how do we warn Kakashi about it without warning Zabuza?"

"Good point, what about... Wow, that's a fairly big wave."

"Yeah... It's heading this way isn't it?"

"Yep... run?"

"RUN!"

This was why a masked shinobi, giggling slightly, saw a trio of genin running through the forest near their position in single file, holding an old, fat, drunk man in a straw hat aloft, screaming and closely pursued by a mini tsunami. The sheer absurdity of the situation caused the masked shinobi to once again break into silent laughter, that was once the wave had been avoided of course.

Once things had calmed down the ninja looked back to find Zabuza holding Kakashi in a water prison.

"Well, Kakashi-teme, looks like your number's up. No more little genin to come and save you, and this water prison seems to have nearly bled your chakra reserves dry..." Zabuza gloated, keeping his appearance up. He didn't want to reveal that his own reserves were bordering on dangerously low as well.

"...'m not..." Kakashi started to say but his voice dropped off to a whisper too fast for Zabuza to hear him properly.

"What's that, teme? Think up another little trick did you?"

The figure in the water shifted and became smaller before looking up at the man with emerald green eyes shining fiercely. "I said, I'm not Kakashi." Harry yelled from within the prison.

Zabuza's eyes went wide at the boy's shit-eating grin. He jumped away at the last second as a tanto sparking with lightning chakra thrust through the air where his hand had been. Harry replaced himself with a tree-stump and collapsed a short distance inland as Kakashi squared off against Zabuza, preparing for what they both knew would be the final blow.

A sudden wave of senbon gave the Konoha nin pause as they struck Zabuza in the neck, causing him to collapse. This inadvertently also caused the man to avoid being hit by a mini-fridge, an emperor penguin and a sake-bottle that Naruto had sent towards his head upon re-entering the clearing. This got a yell from Tazuna as only two of those items had, in fact, been henge'd clones.

"Thank you for your hard work in weakening my target. He has provided me with a very tiring chase these past few months." A ninja wearing a mask with the Kirigakure symbol on the forehead announced, drawing everyone's attention. "Now, if you don't mind, I have to dispose of the body, village secrets and everything."

That said the masked nin and Zabuza's body disappeared.

"OI!" Naruto shouted after them, "That's no fair, we did all the work!"

Kakashi smiled at the boy as he sealed away his weapon and pulled down his forehead protector over his sharingan eye.

"Never mind, Naruto, I have a feeling we'll see them again in the near future." He said in his most mysterious voice before turning to Harry's downed form.

Lifting the boy up so they could look each other square in the face he gave the boy a glare, "Harry, you had no idea what Zabuza's jutsu was going to do and yet you replaced yourself with me, putting yourself at serious risk in doing so. It is my job to protect you, not yours to defend me and if you ever do that again I will beat you so far into the ground you'll be digging yourself out for a week, jutsu or no. What is your excuse?"

Harry, despite his exhaustion smiled weakly and stated; "Those who disobey orders are trash, if I am trash then so be it, at least I'm no worse." When he finished he chose that moment to close his eyes and fall back against the tree he was leaning on. The last words he got out were; "Gee, ain't I dramatic today?" before he blacked out.

Kakashi chuckled at his antics before commenting; "Ha, taking my nindo to heart isn't good for your health, you know? Hey Naruto, you good to make a few clones?" Getting a nod from the boy he gave them one of his famous eye-smiles, "Good, we're gonna need a hand to get to Tazuna's house." That being said he collapsed and joined his dark haired student in the oblivion of unconsciousness.

OMAKE: 'Recruiting a Bodyguard' by Keeper Of Storms

Not a sound was made as the figure crept slowly down the hall. It had to admit, it had been difficult to gain entry to the building; the guards were none too shabby, and the security systems were beyond state of the art. Still, it had made it in, and it allowed itself to reflect on all that it had done over the years. Everything leading up to this moment.

Years had been spent in preparation, countless nights of planning and strategising, so many sacrifices, bribes, and near-misses. The figure could not deny that mistakes had been made, far too many, but thankfully none had done irreparable damage to his schemes. Indeed, as its goal grew ever closer, the figure's only regret was that its plans would necessitate the cessation of all contact with its rival. At first it had loathed the rival with an intensity that rivalled the sun, but slowly and surely its rival had managed to worm its way into its heart.

The time for reflection ended however with the entry to the final room. There, on the desk, sat the target. Though the target looked nothing more than another mere scroll, the figure knew the power that it held and, for the first time in oh so many years, could taste _freedom_.

The figure quickly approached reaching out to collect with one of its limbs and was about to take it when suddenly the lights turned on. Turning to where the figure knew the switch to be from its careful analysis it looked upon the aged and wizened face of Sarutobi Hiruzen.

"I've been expecting you. Tora-san."

**1: Anyone who knows of this rather epic song and can give me a verse I don't already know gets a mention next chapter. Whoever gives me the funniest verse gets an OC named after them and/or to decide Haku & Zabuza's fates.**

**A/N: For those wondering about Naruto's apparent urge to cause his religion's apocalypse, it was always believed to be the ultimate goal of Loki the god of fire and trickery. If anyone can think of a more appropriate god for Naruto to worship/emulate then please speak up.**

**A/N2: Keeper Of Storms has agreed to write up a series of Omakes dealing with his idea based on this story, namely "The adventures of Tora, the Daimyo's Wife's bodyguard." Hope you enjoy, I can't wait to see what whacky adventures unfold.**


	7. Wave Arc 2: Son of Wave Arc

Upon arrival at Tazuna's house the group was greeted warmly by the man's daughter, Tsunami. She fussed over her father as soon as he walked in, that was until she saw the two unconscious ninja being carried in by Naruto's clones and immediately took to mothering the pair. Directing the clones to the spare bedroom, she immediately began setting up futons and putting some restorative tea-leaves on to boil. Once it became clear that neither required the services of a medic she began grilling her father and the two upright shinobi remaining on what had happened.

Once the story had been told, emphasis heavily removed from the dangerous parts after a look from Tazuna, she asked how the genins' team had chosen their mission, expressing her utmost thanks that they had.

Naruto grinned sheepishly at the question and Sakura sent him a glare and sighed as she remembered the boy's antics in the mission room not two days previously.

"Oi, ojii-san, when you gonna give us a decent mission for once?" Naruto had yelled at the Hokage after turning in yet another mindless chore of a mission scroll.

"Naruto, these missions are effective and useful ways for you to gain experience without exposing yourself to dangers outside the village..." Iruka began reprimanding the boy, he had been working with the Hokage on mission assignments during the Academy's holiday period to earn a little extra money, proof that teacher's salaries suck balls everywhere.

"Now, Iruka,if they think they are ready for a higher ranked mission we should give them the opportunity to prove themselves.' The Hokage reprimanded his assistant lightly, "What do you think Kakashi, are they ready for a C-Rank mission?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama, I believe they are." Replied the cycloptic jounin, never once raising his head from reading his book.

"Right" Hiruzen Sarutobi said, looking over his desk at the team assembled in front of him. "Team 7, we have several C-Rank missions for you to choose from; there's this one from Sea Country, apparently they are having a spot of pirate trouble."

"Pirates?" exclaimed Harry with a grin. "Garr, them swashbuckling' bilge rats'll be keelhauled by the time we're done wit'em! Garr!"

Naruto joined in swiftly with a cry of; "We'll hoist 'em up by their mizzens and skewer the lot o' 'em! Yarr!"

Kakashi merely sighed and announced; "For the sake of my sanity, Hokage-sama, I think we'll take a different one."

Harry turned to his sensei with a stricken look in his eye and in a small voice asked "No gar?"

"No gar," the jounin confirmed, glad to have dodged that bullet.

It was to no avail, however as the black haired menace turned to his blond partner in crime and suggested "Mutiny?"

"Mutiny!" Naruto's cry was swiftly silenced by an overhead slam punch from the last member of their team, who then turned a rage-filled eye on Harry.

"No mutiny, we be good."

Silently struggling not to burst into laughter at the antics of the team, the Third Hokage suggested the relatively safe escort to Wave country and introduced the team to their contractor before waving them out of his office. _'I have _got_ to get a video camera set up in here before their next briefing, this stuff is too hilarious to be left to mere memory to record.'_

The event had sent Sakura into a fit of melancholy as she wondered, yet again, why she couldn't have been assigned a team with her Sasuke-kun.

Naruto gave her a look as she seemed to disappear into her own thoughts again. Getting up, he excused himself, saying he'd watch over Harry and Kakashi until they woke. Tazuna agreed, stretching and declaring that he'd like to get some sleep as well before disappearing upstairs.

It was only an hour or two later when Sakura snapped out of her daydream to find everyone bar Tsunami had left already. As she was the only ninja up she guessed that left her with sentry duty. She growled quietly, swearing Naruto would pay for leaving her to do Kami-knew-what.

The next day their Kakashi had awoken to see Harry in the next bed over with a haggard looking Naruto watching over them both in a chair by the window.

The blonde boy perked up immediately upon seeing Kakashi awake and created a shadow clone instructed to fetch Sakura. When said clone popped from a vicious right hook to the jaw he got a very bad feeling.

This was confirmed as an equally haggard-looking Sakura stormed into the room, cursing Naruto's head off and waking Harry in the process. Sakura wasn't impressed, though Kakashi was, that Harry's response to a loud awakening was to ding a kunai off of her hitai-ate.

"Huh? Whazzat?" Harry asked, still in a sleepy daze.

"I said this BAKA left me on guard duty all night whilst he slept up here with you two all night!" Sakura yelled, making her displeasure known.

"That's not true, I've been sending clones out on patrols all night coz I thought you were resting in your room!" Naruto countered. He was interrupted from saying anything further as a clone jumped in through a window, handed him a small bag and dispelled itself.

"What's up Naruto?" Kakashi asked as the blonde sealed away his bag in a small scroll.

"Oh, I had my clones scout out the town. The place needs a severe influx of money soon or they're all gonna starve, one of them decided to help out a shopkeeper who was especially down and bought some books for me, some series called the 'Horus Heresy'. Anyway, nothing to report around the house, though there are roving bands of thugs, mostly under Gato's payroll, wandering around the town and in the woods. Their jobs seem to be harassing the townspeople, extorting money from same, stopping them from growing their own food and making sure no-one tries to leave the island."

Kakashi nodded before turning to Sakura and asking for her report. "No-one approached the house and Tazuna snores loud enough to be heard in the kitchen," apparently didn't impress him as much as Naruto's report did.

"Right, anyway team, we may have a problem. You see, senbon are not very effective means of killing someone." Kakashi began.

"Okay..." Harry said, confused as to why his sensei thought this was a problem, none of them used senbon needles.

"They are, however effective at hitting pressure points on a human's body, several of which can induce coma-like or 'near-death' states. In these states the body's vital signs can be suppressed to give the illusion of death."

"Right..." Naruto led his sensei on, thinking he'd get to the point eventually.

"Fortunately it takes a while to recover from being put into such a state, normally around five days to a week."

"Um sensei...?" Sakura began but was cut off.

"Which gives us a week to train you up for when Zabuza recovers from playing possum."

There was a pause.

It went on for a bit longer than anyone of them would have cared to admit.

In fact if anyone were to reveal the actual length of time it took for this information to process all three genin would be thoroughly embarrassed at their apparent lack of cognitive ability.

It lasted about five minutes.

Kakashi even pulled out his little orange book and started reading.

They were taking that long to acclimatise and adjust to the new information.

"ZABUZA'S ALIVE?" Naruto and Sakura shouted.

Harry's response was slightly delayed and somewhat different, having anticipated his teammates'.

"I'M BRIAN BLESSED!"

After getting funny looks from everyone he clarified; "You know, Flash Gordon."

"Who?" was the collective response.

"Flash... You've never seen...? Come one, it's a classic... Fuck the lot of you then."

Kakashi continued the team meeting, whilst Harry lay back down in his bed and sulked.

"Anyway, yes Zabuza may well be alive and if he is then there's a good chance that we may have to deal with the hunter nin of his when he returns to try and finish off our client. Until then we shall be training and guarding Tazuna's family and bridge in shifts." Kakashi then tested his muscles, trying to stand, leaning against the wall for support.

"Ugh, thankfully I didn't get hit with Zabuza's water prison jutsu so my chakra isn't as drained as it should be, I should be able to train with you in a few days. Harry on the other hand did get his chakra exhausted by it so should probably take the week off to deal with chakra exhaustion."

"Nah, I'll be fine tomorrow." Harry spoke up, still in a mood from earlier.

"What? How?" Kakashi was shocked by this statement and it took a lot to do that him nowadays with Harry and Naruto on his team.

"I recover fast. It's how I keep up with Naruto-nii-san. He has the stamina to train all day, I get second winds after short rests." Harry explained.

Kakashi knew that the boys would often train themselves into the ground but he'd thought Harry just took sensible regular breaks. If he was actually training himself to exhaustion several times a day... No, his chakra capacity would have doubled by now at the very least, not to mention the chakra burns would have cooked the boy from the inside out. There had to be some kind of explanation for it.

"Fine, we'll talk about that later, right now let's discuss training for the lot of you. Sakura, we still need to build your reserves up but there won't be enough time in the week for that to make a difference, so I'm going to show you that B-rank genjutsu I promised you; Demonic Illusion: City of the Damned."

He turned to the blonde shinobi, "Naruto, the way you fight is a lot like a puppet/weapon user, but with clones as your tools so you need to both refine your Taijutsu and learn some long range jutsu as a support. Have you chosen a weapon you want to use yet?" Getting a head-shake signalling no he smiled, "Good we wouldn't have time to you a decent one anyway, still I think you should know jutsu so have your clones practice these." He handed the blonde several scrolls. "I managed to beg a supplementary shadow technique off of the Nara clan but don't use it on Zabuza as it would just enhance his silent killing technique, better to save it for after this mission or use it on any of Gato's thugs that get close to the house."

Naruto nodded and accepted the scrolls off of his sensei, noting the symbol for shadow on one and wind on two others, before sealing them into one of his own scrolls in his jumpsuit's inner pockets.

Harry turned to his sensei once more, curious about what he would be learning. "Harry, I think I may have found a taijutsu style that could suit you, it will however require you to relearn how to fight from the very basics as it is nothing like the Academy, or even most other styles I have seen, though some come close. Even so far as having you relearn how to make a fist. Yes, that's right relearning a fist, not to mention moving... and you may have to grow your nails slightly longer as well. Normally I wouldn't even consider trying to teach something like this in just a week but with shadow clones it could just about be done."

"What is it Kakashi-sensei?" Harry, not to mention the other two, were incredibly curious about this now.

"It's called the Monkey-Fist style. It has several sub variations and advanced styles like the Drunken Monkey, the Standing Monkey and the Stone Monkey, but that would be too much to take in even with the shadow clones, how many can you do at a time?"

"About 250 to 300, Naruto can do up to about ten times that if he has to, though, so I was wondering if he could learn it as well."

Kakashi nearly had an aneurism at that, as Harry's reserves were nearly ten times his own level of chakra capacity, (that put Naruto's reserves at 100 times Kakashi's own which was fucking INSANE), but agreed if the blonde was up for it. "In a week that's about 4-5 years of study at minimum with those numbers. More than enough time to get the basics down, don't you think?" He then showed them the scroll containing all of the 'basic' moves.

Harry stared at the open scroll in his hands, with Naruto and Sakura looking over his shoulders, going through each individual pose, their minds filling in the blanks of the movements in between as they had trained to do during the Academy. It involved staying low to the ground, with a LOT of rolls, flips and difficult acrobatic movement, not to mention the weird, interchangeable extended-fist/claw position the hands were to be held in. Strikes looked to be aimed at either the groin or throat areas, with claw swipes against the eyes and face, whole thing, it said at the beginning was to be included with varying facial expressions, to be changed at random times to confuse attackers and required movement in a crouched, all-fours type of method that was oddly reminiscent of the Inuzuka's Beast style, but with less emphasis on ferocity and more on confusing, jerky movements. There even seemed to be the basis of staff-fighting poses interspersed in with the other katas.

Sakura, unable to see Harry's expression, turned on their teacher. "That's got to be the stupidest..."

"THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME STYLE EVER!" Harry's shout was on a level of magnitude even Sakura would be hard pressed to reach. Kakashi was nearly deafened and then squashed as the boy literally leapt from his bed to hug his sensei.

The boy then leapt out the window, shouting back, "I'm gonna go practice right..."

Kakashi turned to Naruto, who was nearest the window, "He collapsed again didn't he?" Getting a nod he ordered him to bring the boy back up and for the two remaining genin to get some rest as well.

Naruto left and before Sakura could go too he stopped her. "Before you say anything about the techniques I gave him, just remember, the Sandaime has the Monkey summoning contract and has more than likely incorporated some of the moves of the monkey style into his own taijutsu techniques."

Sakura, at least, had the humility to blush and begin to apologise. Kakashi just wave her off saying, "Remember something my sensei once told me; any action, no matter how stupid, if it works, isn't stupid."

The next several days went by in a bit of a blur. After the second day, Kakashi even managed to do a little training of his own, though he kept himself from tiring himself out just in case the team came under attack. Sakura had progressed to the point where she could make three shadow clones, though she was pretty much wiped out after that. Being fair to her, that was pretty much a low Chunin's standard chakra capacity and Kakashi was loathe to compare her progress to the other two members of his team. She also made great progress with the genjutsu Kakashi gave her, she could get the illusion down perfectly, calling up a city from Hell around her opponents to torment and disorientate them, she just needed practice at introducing the changes slowly in order to fool an opponent's subconscious into believing the illusion.

That was the true sign of mastery of genjutsu. Anyone could cobble together an image and force it into someone's head with chakra, well except for Naruto for some reason, but the true art was in building up to the event so that, even if the victim's conscious mind recognised the illusion, their subconscious would work against them in helping to keep the fantasy going.

Naruto spent the majority of his time working on the wind jutsu, drilling air bullet and great breakthrough. One required a lot of concentrated wind chakra to act like a spiralling ball of wind which was launched at the opponent, creating a piercing effect more common to lightning jutsu than to wind attacks. The second was more along the lines of a massive destruction attack using wind chakra to cut through barriers and overwhelm smaller jutsu and things that got in the way, such as people. He also spent a bit of time on the 'rising blackness' shadow technique, which worked like Zabuza's hidden mist to obscure the battlefield by covering the land in shadow and darkness. This was a discontinued supplementary Nara technique as pretty much none of them had the chakra reserves to pull it off.

Harry spent his days in a near constant combative state as he and his shadow clones trained in monkey taijutsu. His highlight was definitely during a spar when he rolled from a lying down position into a handstand and kicked two of his clones in the face with a splits kick.

Everyone was pretty tense about the whole Zabuza thing at first but once Naruto decided to break out the insanity again. This led to Kakashi saying many things that he's never even considered having to utter as long as he lived.

Included were such classics as; "Naruto, even if we do find Zabuza's base I doubt either he or his companions would believe we're the hosts of a show called 'Pimp My Sword'. Even if they do fall for that, I doubt he'd let us mess about with his weapon..."

Then there was the incident where Naruto decided on inventing a new form of teamwork/combat practice;

"Naruto, dual-wielding your teammates is generally frowned upon"

"Aww."

"BAKA! PUT ME DOWN!"

"Especially when Sakura is one of them."

Even that paled in significance when Harry and Naruto both decided on a way to rile up their sensei during Henge practice;

The two boys grinned at each other before yelling in unison whilst slamming their right fists together; "Wonder twin powers Activate!"

"For the last time, would you please just call it Henge no Jutsu like everyone else?" their cycloptic Jounin's complaint went unheard by the two.

Then, one day Inari, Tazuna's grandson watched him practice and had run home crying. That night he screamed at them, telling them how little their training would do them, how Gato ("Mmm... Cake" from Harry didn't help) would just kill them in the end, he told them all to just leave. By the end Naruto was fuming and ready to yell at the kid but Harry beat him to it.

"You ungrateful little shit. Your grandfather is doing his best to stop that tyrant, to help his people and break the bastard's control over this country and what does he get to hear, from his own family, no less? 'We're all gonna die' Doom and gloom statements instead of the love and support you should be showing him. You have a family that loves you, a family that cares about you, you have a room all to your own, a roof over your head, food on your table and people trying to fight for your right to survive and be happy. You claim to know suffering? You don't know the half of what evils there are in the world!"

He had stood up by this point and was shouting down to the still seated boy. "Naruto has been orphaned, beaten and ostracised in a village he protects with his life nearly every damned day of his life for something he can't control. I grew up with _relatives_ of mine who beat me and worked me like a dog ever since I could stand until I almost killed myself out of desperation! We have had to fight and scrape for every shred of clothing on our backs, for every scrap of food we can get to eat and for every measly ryo we could get to afford our induction into the ninja ranks because the council of our village would rather see us dead than have us serve them as shinobi. _WHERE THE HELL DO YOU GET OFF CLAIMING YOU HAVE HAD A HARD LIFE_?"

With that he left the crying boy at the table, ripped the door open and stormed off into the fading light.

Harry wandered in the forest for a while before the desire to destroy something over took him and he began projecting explosive seals onto every tree within twenty feet of him. He stopped when he heard a familiar approaching set of footsteps.

"Hey, 'Ruto, sorry about outing your secrets about your life and everything back there."

"No worries nii-san." Naruto paused "I think I can afford to let Sakura know, we are teammates after all." He left a longer pause. "You never told me about... before."

"Yeah, not exactly something I like to remember."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Nah, I'm okay for now. That rant at least got some of it out in the open and it feels a little better... and no, you don't need to put me on suicide watch," he joked, his humour almost as dark as his mood by that point.

"'Kay, wanna head back?"

"Not really, you mind sparring for a bit?"

"Yeah, sure, what do you say, free-for-all, tournament style or just one-on-one?"

"Free-for-all, fifty clone limit, taijutsu only. I wanna know I can at least use the basics in a fight."

"Good idea," Naruto said, stretching his arms above his head, "On three?"

"One..."

"Two..."

*BOOM* A huge smoke cloud enveloped the recently created clearing when a hundred figures leapt from both sides.

"For Chaos!" came the Narutos' battle cry.

"For Glory!" Shouted the Harrys

"FOR RAMEN!" They all shouted in unison.

It was mid morning the next day when Harry and Naruto began to stir. They'd both been given a fairly intense workout that night and Harry still had some of the bruises to show for it. Naruto, or as Harry dubbed him 'the lucky bastard', seemed to have healed up already. _'Mental note, dodging could improve.'_ He thought, especially as that was one of the key defences of the style, the ability to coordinate seemingly random movements into dodges and counterattacks quickly. He still had to smile at the look on Naruto's face when he'd dropped to the ground, paused for a second then rolled forward and swept his leg from under him.

Stretching Harry saw Naruto was just beginning to wake too and that they weren't the only ones in the clearing. Across from them stood a figure with its face in shadow, wearing a light green kimono and carrying a small basket in their arms.

"Hello," came the girly voice from across the clearing, "Sorry to wake you."

"No problem, we needed to get up anyway, I'm Harry, this is my brother Naruto."

"Hey" waved the slightly drowsy blonde.

"Good morning, Harry-san, Naruto-san, my name is Haku. Pardon me for asking but aren't you worried you'll get sick if you sleep outside all night?" Haku asked, stepping forward to reveal a very effeminate face showing concern.

"Nah, we're fine," Naruto assuaged her fears, "We're totally awesome ninja who never get sick."

"Oh, wow, ninja, that's impressive, but you still get ill sometimes, though, right? I mean no one is immune to sickness."

"Huh, never thought about it but I don't think I've ever been sick before... Neither's Harry..."

"Well, anyway, I'd better be going..." Haku began but Harry stopped her.

"Wait, um... what's the hurry?" he asked.

"Oh, I have someone very precious to me and he's sick at the moment so I'm gathering herbs to make him some medicine."

"Well, we'll be happy to help you, won't we bro?" Harry asked, getting a nod from Naruto.

"Yeah, what are we looking for."

"Oh, these ones with the blue and white petals." Haku indicated some of the flowers already gathered in the basket.

"Gotcha."

Conversation quickly turned from what the two were doing in the forest, "Training", to why they were in the county in the first place as Wave didn't have a ninja village, "Helping an old man with a work project of his" to finally the horrible condition of wave in general and the man responsible.

"The thing is I can't understand why the man hired ninja for a long term mission in the first place." Harry chipped in at one point, to himself than the other two.

"Why not?" Haku asked.

"Well, ninja are expensive, especially high ranked ones like the one we fought. Missing nin are even more expensive because their services come 'off the books' of the hidden villages, which is why corrupt guys like Gato go for them. To hire one on for more than a week makes no sense, especially when he already has this many mercenary bandits roaming around the place, that is unless he hasn't payed them yet..."

"What are you talking about?" Haku asked.

"Well, if the guy is waiting for them to complete the mission before paying them then it's easily one of the oldest tricks in the book, hell even animals do it all the time. You wait until the two powerful guys fight it out and once they're both weak from the fight you swoop in and butcher them both and take the power, or in this case the money for yourself. If Gato's done that then guaranteed that's why there's so many mercs around, they're waiting for Zabuza to take out the competition before they stab him in the back and swarm him with sheer numbers."

Naruto piped up at this point; "Yeah, hell I bet even that fake hunter nin is in on it. A double play, Gato hires Zabuza to take down the enemy, then hires the hunter nin to 'help' him until he's taken out the enemies, i.e. us, then to take Zabuza out when he's weakened. Once the hunter nin comes back with Zabuza's head he greets him with his army of goons. Wham, bam, no ninja to pay off and he also gets the bounty of a high class ninja to boot."

"Yeah, but if that were the case then why would he have helped the guy when we first fought?"

"Because Kakashi-sensei hadn't gone down yet and the hunter nin didn't know how much longer he could keep fighting for."

Haku suddenly turned from where they stood and told them that it was late and the sick friend would probably be needing his medicine soon.

"Wait, Haku-chan," Harry yelled, "Will we see you tomorrow, maybe?"

"I don't think so," Haku responded, "Oh, and by the way, I'm a boy." That said Haku quickly disappeared into the forest.

Harry was so stunned he couldn't move.

Naruto calmly walked up and placed a consoling hand on his brother's shoulder. "Harry-nii-san, I realise that since last night was a very emotional and difficult time for you it would be in very poor taste to make fun of you right now."

He pulled his brother into a manly one armed hug. "However, you have just fallen in love with a boy and as soon as your girly emotions are all in check I am going to mock you so hard you'll think it was a national pastime."

Kakashi was getting worried about his two wayward students. After Harry's outburst Naruto had gone looking for him but neither had come back. He resolved that if neither had returned by lunch he would send out a nankeen search party to look for them, just to make sure they hadn't gotten in trouble.

He was greatly relieved, then when the two ame barrelling in through the front door before anyone else was up, just as he sat down with his freshly made breakfast.

Kakashi looked at the two and asked; "Hey, you guys okay after last night?"

"Oh, I'm fine sensei," Naruto responded first, "But you might want to take it easy on Harry, he's just had his heart broken."

"Shut up!"

"Don't be like that, I think you and Haku would've made a cute couple."

"Oh," Kakashi perked up at this news, "Tell me about this Haku."

"Well, Haku's cute, wears a _gorgeous_ green kimono, enjoys _picking flowers_ with Harry-kun and thinks ninja are _amazing. _ Then, it all went wrong when Haku had to leave, when Harry asked Haku if they could meet up tomorrow he said he couldn't and left."

"Well, that's too bad Harry, but... wait... _he?_"

"Oh, did I forget to mention that Haku was a _boy_?" Naruto said, relishing the moment.

"You thought he was a girl too!" Harry practically shouted at the blonde.

"True, but _I_ didn't fall madly head over heels in love with _him_."

"I hate you so much," Harry stated before turning his glare on his giggling sensei, "Not a word!"

"I'm sorry, Harry, it's just a bit of a shock that's all. Naruto, you should be ashamed of yourself. There's nothing wrong with people who are inclined _that way_. You shouldn't mock your brother for it."

'Damnit, you two! I'M NOT GAY!" Harry yelled.

"Harry, there's no need to be ashamed of it now that you're out of the closet. As your sensei it is my job to offer what support I can to you if you find it hard to transition to a more expressive lifestyle and I promise to do the best I can to help you."

"Fuck the pair of you, I'm going to train." Harry ended up once more storming out of the house, this time leaving his teammates laughing to themselves.

On the other side of the island, in a heavily fortified underground location, Zabuza of the Bloody Mist was receiving a rather disturbing report and theory from his ally.

"I think they could be right."

"I don't care we were hired to do this job and we will see it through to the end. If the pompous midget stiffs us then we just need to pay him a visit at the end of this as well."

"Are you sure you want to do this? I know gathering the funds would be difficult any other way but deliberately crippling and destroying a whole country just doesn't sit right. The whole reason we started this was to save our own country from a madman, if we keep up with this, how are we any better than him?"

"Quiet! When I want your opinions I'll ask for them. I don't like this any more than you do but it is not your place to question me. Remember, you are my tool and nothing more."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Zabuza-sama. I forgot that I'm your dirty, filthy tool. Oh won't you please use your naughty tool?"

"Stop that, you know how wrong you make that sound don't you, Haku?"

It didn't get any better for Harry as he grew hungry and when he returned to the house for lunch he was immediately mobbed by Sakura, who had degenerated into her rapid fangirl-speak that was hard for him to hear never mind get a word in.

"Oh my god, I'm so happy, finally someone on this team that I can talk to properly. I'm so sorry, looking back now I know I must have made it hard for you to be open about this but I'm so happy for you. Quick, you must tell me about this boy of yours, was he pretty or butch? How did he measure up to Sasuke-kun? I know just how we could help you win him back, but first we need to go SHOPPING! Yay!"

This culminated in a small rage-induced blackout on Harry's part. He could never remember and none who witnessed would ever willingly speak of what happened in those short few minutes but afterwards Tsunami couldn't look at Harry the same way ever again, Inari and Naruto both swore off wasabi sauce for life, Sakura was violently ill, Tazuna swore off of drinking before noon and Kakashi gained a newfound respect for his dark-haired genin. Kakashi even went so far as to lend him his first Icha-Icha book on the condition that Harry never tell him the full extent of what he carried around in his sealing scrolls. Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura all ended up with some minor injuries as well but they were quickly overshadowed and forgotten by _The Very Much Straight Harry Fiasco_.

Thankfully the tension was dissolved by a knock at the door.

Surprised, Naruto answered the door, whilst Kakashi took up a relaxed guard position in front of Tazuna's family and Harry put his jacket back on.

When the door opened Naruto found himself staring at an open brown trench coat barely concealing the assets of a woman dressed only in that, a fishnet body stocking and a tan miniskirt.

"DANGO-CHAN!" Naruto cried as he glomped the woman as hard as he could, sending her falling onto her ass on Tazuna's porch.

"Hey, gaki, good to see you." The purple haired woman greeted him. "Now while I don't mind the occasional public roll in the hay, you're still a little young and we appear to have an audience."

"You're rude, Dango-chan." Naruto accused the woman as he got to his feet.

"Dobe, get out of the way." Came a surly voice from behind the scantily clad woman and Naruto's expression immediately darkened.

"What the hell are you doing here, Teme?"

"Baka, Anko is my sensei and the Hokage ordered us to come and bail you out when he heard you're team was too weak to pull off a simple C-rank mission." The Uchiha smirked, annoying the blonde. His smile quickly vanished as a loud screech came from inside the house.

"SASUKE-KUN!" This time it was Sasuke's turn to be glomped as a pink blur slammed into him.

By this time Harry and Kakashi had made their way to the door and were treated to the rather disturbing sight of their pink haired team-mate trying to snuggle up against a struggling Sasuke whilst Naruto and Anko stood off to the side laughing at the boy.

Naruto quickly made introductions; "Sensei, Nii-san, this is Dango-chan."

Kakashi nodded to the woman simply saying, "Anko."

Harry on the other hand saw the opportunity to cause some havoc and grinned at his brother. "So this is the woman you've been crushing on, nice choice, 'Ruto."

Before Naruto could think of a reply he was swept up in a bone-crushing hug and pressed firmly into the older woman's chest. "Aw, does my little Chibi have a crush on little old me?"

Naruto's vain struggles and shout of "Mmf mmh mhm mmph mm" did little to help get him out of his situation as Anko held him there, cooing to him whilst she made her way into the house.

Eventually, when oxygen became a problem and no other options seemed available he shouted "Mmf Mae Mmu Mphn Mo Muphu", ten clones appeared, grabbed hold of his legs and pulled him free of Anko's grip.

Naruto drew a deep breath and the clones dispelled themselves, leaving him, a laughing Harry, an amused Kakashi and a shocked Anko, Tazuna and Tsunami staring at the boy whilst Sasuke and Sakura had still yet to come in from outside.

"Gaki, why didn't you tell me you were a one man gang bang? Opinion changed, you are now firmly on the shag-able list." Anko gave Naruto a wink that had him shuddering, suddenly very fearful for his innocence. "However, business before pleasure, Kakashi, what do we need to know?"

"Mah, not much, Gato's thugs are patrolling the town, Zabuza's been quiet, most likely resting from our fight and his accomplice is nowhere to be seen, the rest was in the missive I sent back. I've been training my students this past week to prepare them for the encounter, oh and speaking of, aren't you gonna help your student?"

"Nah, if he can't handle one fan girl then there's no hope for him. I'll fill him in later, when your student is done filling me in."

"Dango-chaaaaan!" Naruto whined before turning on his brother "This is all your fault."

Harry just grinned "Hey, I'm not the one who showed off his amazing doubling act in front of a kinky woman with what I'm guessing are fairly flexible morals."

"Morals is a new name for them, I'll give you that brat."

"And a very dirty mind." Harry turned to the grinning woman, "Uzumaki-Potter Harry, the blonde's adopted brother, close combat specialist and Seal-Master in training."

"Mitarashi Anko, Snake Mistress of Konoha, seduction and assassination specialist."

"You're the Uchiha's sensei." It wasn't a question.

"What gave me away?"

"Can you fix him?"

"As in mentally or like you do with pets?"

"One or the other, preferably both, but I'm not particularly fussed."

Anko laughed at that, "Sorry, gaki, the council would use that as an excuse to finally have me killed. I like you, though, got a good attitude."

"Ahem," came the testy cough of Tsunami from by the table, "so I take it the two of you will be staying to help as well." she asked with a surly look at Anko.

"Yep, not a problem is it girly?" Anko replied.

"Not at all, I'll just go and put some more rice on for lunch, father would you mind helping me in here?"

Tazuna, who had not stopped staring at Anko's cleavage since she arrived grunted in reply.

"NOW!"

Snapping out of his stupor, Tazuna made a hasty retreat into the kitchen after his angry daughter.

"What's up with her?" Naruto asked, clearly confused by Tsunami's sudden shift from over-bearing mother to pissed off bitch.

"Ah, don't mind her, Chibi, women get like that around me sometimes, I'm used to it, now come over here and give Anko some sugar."

She was interrupted by her student, who chose that time to come flying in through the closed front window. The smash and his cry of "I'll pay for that." were all they heard before he'd exited the building again, this time through the back door. Sakura followed not ten seconds later, using the front door this time.

She looked around at all the shinobi present before each one unanimously raised their hands to point where the boy had gone. A mumbled thanks later and she was gone.

"Hey, Harry." Naruto asked, a mischievous smirk on his face.

"Yeah?"

"You got that proximity detection seal working yet?"

"More or less, it's kinda limited though, can't get much more than a few inches out of it yet."

"Don't worry, that's plenty." Naruto grinned, taking out a tag from his pouch.

He didn't get much further as, several miles away, on an otherwise unremarkable beach, a few hundred discarded objects, ranging from kunai to refrigerators to blow up sheep, disappeared in a poof of smoke.

Everyone seemed quite shocked when Naruto suddenly twitched and passed out.

Several seconds went by before Anko asked; "I take it Chibi doesn't do this regularly, does he?"

"No," Kakashi answered, putting away his book and beginning to run through one of the very few diagnostic jutsu he had picked up over the years.

Naruto awoke blearily to sunlight flooding the room. He didn't know what happened, one minute he had thought up a great prank to pull on Sasuke, the next he was having dreams about sitting on a beach for a week with nothing to do.

Stretching, he yawned and began putting his clothes on, which someone had removed and layed out on the chair next to his futon. Gods, he hated those things. He swore, every time he woke up he swore that when he had enough money he'd get a hammock, no he'd get two, one for home and one for missions.

Finishing off his stretches as he pulled on his jacket he was startled by loud voices coming from downstairs. Figuring Harry or Kakashi had angered Sakura somehow he paid it no mind until he heard a scream.

Within seconds he had his kunai pouch strapped to his thigh, his general purpose pouch on his waist and he was on his way down the stairs.

Arriving at the scene he found a hysterical Tsunami being held by a thuggish looking guy with a sword on his back whilst another with a club stood over Inari's prone form.

Before either of the two could quite register his presence he'd run through hand seals and spat out a wind style; drilling air bullet at the one standing over the boy.

Said grunt took the jutsu straight to the chest and was forcefully propelled through the closed front door of the house. As all eyes turned to follow the man's flight Naruto quickly made several shadow clones and had them sneak up behind the man holding Tsunami.

When everyone turned to look back at him he began slowly advancing on the the pair before the guy held his katana to Tsunami's throat and began shouting. "Back off, kid!" His cry was slightly too high, his eyes too wide to be threatening, showing just how scared the display had him. Naruto stopped his advance. "One more step and she dies."

"So?" Naruto countered, "Our contract is to protect the bridge builder, not his family. Also, you kill her and there's nothing stopping me from using this..." he pulled out a kunai, "to gut you like a fish."

Now the guy was sweating bullets, he held his katana a little tighter and closer to Tsunami's neck. "I mean it kid, I'll do it!"

"Option one; you kill her, I kill you, blah blah blah we both lose out. Option two, you put down your little toy sword and run on home while the big boys play. Or, option three..."

Naruto's clones spoke up from directly behind the man, "We kill you right now." The guy's scream was cut short as one clone cut his throat whilst two more grabbed his arm to stop him from killing Tsunami and the rest stabbed the guy in various vital organs.

Shaking uncontrollably, as soon as she was released Tsunami dropped to the floor and vomited up her breakfast.

Naruto crouched beside her and offered her a drink of water whilst his clones cleaned up the mess. Grudgingly she accepted as he spoke; "Mah, mah, sorry about all that." He said, a big smile on his face to reassure her, "I had to distract the guy while my clones got into position. Also, sorry about the door."

"How...?" Came a small voice from the middle of the floor, "How can you smile like that after what you just did?"

"Inari," Naruto began, "It was necessary to protect you and your mother. Some things, especially those precious to you, you have to be willing to fight to protect. That's what strength means to me, that's what strength means to my brother as well. As long as we are protecting each other or those we care about, we will face any hardship. Was it right to kill those two? In an ideal world, no. It was necessary, however, to protect you guys and I can live with that. I hate having to kill, but I'd hate to see you two get killed even more if there was something I could have done to have stopped it."

"But... but Gato's got an army, how can anyone be strong enough to fight that?"

"You don't have to be strong on your own."

"Eh?"

"Gato's got an army? Get your own damn army!"

Harry was having a problem.

Scratch that, he had two bloody problems, the only thing was he could only kill one of them.

Problem one was the needle throwing, mask wearing, ice using bastard that was Zabuza's hunter-nin partner.

Problem two was the glory seeking, stuck-up, emo, sharingan wielding cock sucker that was Sasuke Uchiha. That and Konoha's rules about 'friendly fire'. If he had his way there would be no friendly about it.

He was currently stuck with the broody bishounen-from-hell inside their mutual enemy's ice mirror jutsu, dodging wave after wave of senbon needles. Fortunately his new taijutsu style training had incorporated enough dodging practice from Naruto's army of kunai-throwing clones that he was mostly free of... well he wasn't vitally wounded.

Sasuke, however was fairing even better as he had the unfortunate habit of placing himself behind Harry whenever a fresh wave of senbon appeared.

Harry had no idea how many senbon were currently sticking out of his back but he had the strangest urge to paint himself blue, put on a pair of red shoes and just run. This was not a good sign in his opinion.

"God damn it! Why can't I copy this guy's jutsu?"

"Ha, foolish child. Even with your precious eyes only one of my kin could use my bloodline jutsus."

"Oi, Captain Emo, stop whining and try thinking of a way out of here."

"Dobe, it's not my fault you were too stupid not to hang back whilst your betters began fighting."

Harry gritted his teeth and tried to think of his own way out. He couldn't project any seals onto the mirrors... maybe the ground beneath them? No, he'd tried that and the mirror just regenerated almost instantly. He definitely couldn't fight this guy up close whilst the damn jutsu was active. He didn't know many jutsu, well underground projection fish or whatever Kakashi called it might help but he never learnt it. Dammit Naruto was the ninjutsu guy on their team and they just had to leave him at the house to recover from passing out.

Kakashi was once more fighting Zabuza, and it was shaping up to be just as bad as the last time. He didn't even have help as he'd planned because he wasn't the only one who called for backup during the week long respite they'd both had. Ducking a slice that came out of the ever thickening mist and took down a set of scaffolding he glanced over to see how Anko was doing. Before he could get a look at her he was forced to dodge and stab at another of Zabuza's mist clones. Those were definitely getting old fast.

Anko, meanwhile, had the distinct honour of fighting an individual she's neither been informed about nor prepared for whilst her comrade faced off against the eyebrow-less wonder and her student played with the man's little boy-toy. The man she was facing was another missing mist nin. His face was mostly obscured by long shaggy hair, he wore a kind of black overcoat/cloak ensemble that did much to obscure his figure and hide his hands and feet.

This led to Anko unfortunately having no clue which way he would go next or what jutsus he would be performing when he did. Fortunately he didn't seem keen on using jutsu and instead focused on trying to get in close and stab her with his kunai, launching senbon needles whenever she managed to retreat a little to gain some distance.

Fortunately her flexibility allowed her to mostly avoid his attacks, though she did get nicked with a senbon at first which turned out to be coated in a mild poison. Redoubling her dodging efforts she exulted when she ducked a swipe meant for her neck and managed to bury her kunai in the man's chest.

Her grin faded when he didn't even slow down and she had to roll to the side to duck an overhead slash.

_'What the hell? He should at least have been irritated by that. He's not wearing armour that I can tell..."_ Anko thought as she kept dodging the man's follow-up combination of strikes, _'The blade stuck so that means he has to be... Oh for fuck's sake! How did Mist even get one?"_

"Fucking puppet wielding bastard! Show yourself!" She yelled into the mists surrounding the bridge. Her only answer was a directionless chuckle at her expense and another volley of senbon needles from the puppet. Said puppet then dropped all pretence of humanity and soared up into the air, the shaggy hair parting to reveal the wooden visage of a larger than normal Karasu-style puppet.

Sakura was panicking. Her beloved Sasuke-kun had gotten trapped in an ice prison with Harry-baka, her sensei was locked in another struggle with Zabuza and the other woman was stuck fighting a really creepy guy... who had just started _flying!_

This was bad. This was really bad. She couldn't even go help her Sasuke-kun because she had to guard the client. What was she going to do?

Is that music?

Naruto had found that clones he henge'd into birds could actually fly. Now he was riding the only bird he'd ever heard of as being big enough to carry a human, a Roc. He didn't know that said bird was a mythical creature because if he did then he'd have clones henge'd into dragons following him around _constantly_.

He'd also tried another aspect of his clone henge's and said Roc was carrying another clone in the form of a boom-box.

For some reason he felt that 'Flight of the Valkyries' was truly fitting for what he had planned.

Approaching the bridge from the air he waited until they were almost overhead before leaping off with a cry; "TAJUU KAGE BUSHIN NO JUTSU!"

Everyone looked up as a force of over two thousand Naruto clones with shit-eating grins appeared over the battlefield. Kakashi had time to think _'Oh god, no!'_ and perform a quick Kawarimi before the same cry was heard from more than a thousand mouths.

**"FUTON: DAITOPPA NO JUTSU!"**

**"AUTHOR STYLE: CLIFFHANGER NO JUTSU!"**

**A/N: Right, new chapter and with it a request. REVIEW people! Seriously 50 reviews? There are 109 people out there who have favourite'd this story and 153 who've got it on alert! Seriously, I'm running out of funnys to put in the story (Until they get to Hogwarts that is) and **_**need**_** suggestions, comments, opinions, whatever. **

**I thought posting a challenge would get more reviews last time but no such luck. So this time it's open suggestions for reviews to get the comments coming in.**

**Choice no.1: Summoning contracts; Yes, no? Found, gifted, self created? Which animal for who? Should Harry get one?**

**Choice no.2: Should Harry's Chakra projection (Still need to come up with a japanese name for that) become a doujutsu bloodline? As in a technique that imprints itself on a user's DNA with frequent use? Could be a kinjutsu because it overrides previous bloodlines such as the Sharingan and Byakugan and as such is feared as 'dangerous' by the clan council.**

**Choice no.3: As a last reserve, if you can't think of ANYTHING else to comment or review on, maybe I'd be open to suggestions for future pairings as a remote possibility **_**IF**_** you make a decent argument for your case **_**AND **_**you appease me with gifts of cyber cookies and/or shinys.**

OMAKE by Keeper of Storms

The guards ran for all they were worth towards the office. Someone had not only bypassed several of the alarms but eliminated half of the shift before the alarm was raised. Even then, the only reason that had happened was because of an accident. The new guy had taken a wrong turn and found the unconscious bodies tied up in a corner of the storeroom. As the door came in sight they didn't slow down, crashing straight through it with a resounding smash as the door splintered under the weight of their assault.

They quickly began searching, spreading out across the room in an attempt to find anything amiss. It was a cry from the sergeant that brought said item to their attention. One of the many hidden safes in the room had been opened, the contents no longer present. These papers in particular were extraordinarily valuable, as they contained the operational details of the smuggling ring currently operating in Fire Country… A smuggling ring sponsored by the advisor to the Lord of the castle. If Konoha were to get their hands on these papers… The end of all those involved would be swift, and most likely painful. Unknown to the guards there was a scolding currently taking place a mere hundred metres away…

The distance meant they did not hear a, rather grating not to mention sickening, voice coo with disappointment. "Tora! How could you run away like that! Shame on you!"


	8. Wave Episode VI Return of the J Ninja

**Cirrat stared at the screen for a second as what he had just read filtered through the pathways of his brain. A grin spread across his face as he realised he had the perfect counter to the technique displayed. With a crack of his knuckles and the fast typing of keys the retaliatory attack was soon on its way to devastate and neutralise. With a contented smile he leaned back and interlaced his fingers behind his head.**

**"Author Style: Cliffhanger no Jutsu is no match for my Reader Style: Constructive Review no Jutsu."**

**Miles away a tone alerted a young aspiring author to an incoming email. He logged on to an internet web-page to read the message and cursed as his well thought out scheme backfired totally. His Cliffhanger no Jutsu, meant to give him time to research new material for his next update had been defeated. Reader Style: Constructive Review no Jutsu had shattered his defences, showing him how much his work was appreciated and drew him in... enticing him to begin writing once more... to lay bare his talents and subject them to web-wide scrutiny.**

**With the soft smile of a man who feels appreciated for his work he set to typing once more.**

**Login to complete. Welcome Firedamaged...**

The sky blurred above a section of half-completed bridge as a plethora of orange-clad blonde-haired ramen-junkies faded into being. There was a slight pause as those in the area stared upwards before the falling assault wave yelled out their technique as one; "Fuuton: Daitoppa no Jutsu!"

It was at this time that those watching the spectacle came to realise two very important things. The first was just how much chakra Uzumaki Naruto was able to throw around willy-nilly without tiring. The second was the reason why wind techniques are primarily used by opponents in firm contact with the ground.

The combined force of two thousand Daitoppa jutsu was split evenly, half going into a large-scale attack on the bridge structure itself and everyone on top of said structure, with the other half sending two thousand blonde ninja on a collision course with whatever happened to be in the stratosphere at the time.

Harry had time to palm his face from within the cage of ice mirrors as his opponent's attention was focused solely on keeping those mirrors from being destroyed under the pressure of his brother's attack.

Sasuke grew angry at himself for not looking up in time to copy the dobe's techniques. He consoled himself with the fact that the boy would probably use them again soon, if he didn't die, and he could take them then.

Kakashi sighed in relief as he'd managed to get himself and his only female student out of there before the attack hit. He checked to make sure Anko was still holding on to a living Tazuna in the next tree over before he shushined back to the bridge.

Anko was more than a little turned on by her Chibi's display of strength. She was already making plans to get Kakashi to trade him for the pompous Uchiha brat. _'...and I will hug him and kiss him and love him and pet him and I will call him George.' _*

Of the others on the bridge, Zabuza managed to get his sword in the way to absorb most of the impact and his ice-wielding assistant was protected by their mirrors, however the puppet their unseen ally used was not so lucky. A puppet shaped indent in what remained of the bridge and a pile of sawdust was all that was left of the thing. If anyone had been listening at the time they'd have heard a voice from underneath the far end of the bridge announce "Bollocks to this, no one mentioned a one man army, I'm outta here. Good luck Zabs."

Zabuza glared in rage and absolute hatred at the retreating orange cloud. _'That little bastard bent my sword!"_ (he's talking about the Kubikiri Houcho, minds out of the gutter, people)

"Nice boomerang." Kakashi commented as he dropped in front of the man.

"Wow, this guy's not compensating for anything." Anko announced her presence shortly after, having found no sign of her opponent. The mist that had covered the bridge previously had been blown back by Naruto's technique.

"How original," Zabuza quipped back before growling at his bent weapon again, "You have no idea how much blood it's gonna take for this much damage to be regenerated."

"That's interesting and everything, but I'm more worried about what'll happen when Naruto eventually makes his peace with gravity." Kakashi retorted, looking up at the, now approaching, blonde horde.

The others looked up with him. Anko was the one who voiced what they were all thinking; "He's gonna try something else isn't he?"

"Yep."

"Do we want to be here when he does?"

"Probably not."

"Oh... why are we still here then?"

"I don't know about Zabuza, but call it morbid fascination on my part."

The conversation was halted when the popping sound of Henge's being applied reached their ears and the orange cloud was replaced by a greyish-black rain.

"Oh, shit!" Kakashi exclaimed as his sharingan helped him process what had just happened. He quickly grabbed a large peice of wooden scaffolding debris that had blown nearby and held it above himself and Anko whilst Zabuza once more used his sword as a shield.

Kakashi almost immediately regretted his wooden shield as several of the newly transformed arrows were set afire by the friction of their speed. One of which poofed to reveal the original Naruto, his hair aflame and panicking before he shot down past the edge of the bridge and into the water below. Most of the rest of the clones popped on impact, though one embedded itself in Zabuza's foot before it disappeared, leaving the man cursing and hopping around on the other foot whilst trying to get a seal-less healing jutsu to work on it.

Kakashi now had another thing on his list of questions to ask Naruto, namely; how the hell did he make his henge's _solid_? He then realised that his first clue should have been the pie to the face incident when they first met and then had to kick himself as the not-quite-so-repressed memories of the 'kunai twirling' incident came to mind from their genin test.

_'Damn it, I need to start paying more attention to these guys.' _he thought_ 'For all I know Harry could be a freaking wizard in his spare time.'_

He made his way to the edge of the bridge and looked over. He resisted the urge to facepalm.

Naruto was a little annoyed. His sensei had yet to teach him how to walk on water, so on top of his head being scorched he was also thoroughly wet. He swam to the nearest support leg of the bridge. The poor thing looked like it had taken a lot of damage from his great breakthrough attack and was displaying cracks and distortions all along the concrete structure.

Preparing to walk up the side of it with his chakra he stopped and instead assumed a crawling position on the vertical surface as he climbed up on all fours. Very quietly he began singing; "Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can..." Looking up, he noticed Kakashi-sensei watching him so he grinned up at him.

Zabuza, who had managed to put his foot into a quick regeneration jutsu, rounded on Kakashi. "Alright, in between The Teleporting Wonder over there and Captain Shapeshifter McChakraAbuse I'm not sure I want to know what Pinky has up her skinny little sleeves. That and the fact that I appear to be outnumbered... What do you say we go our separate ways?"

"Call your subordinate off."

"Fine, HAKU!"

Inside the ice dome things weren't playing out well. Haku was struggling to hit the Uchiha bastard in a non-lethal takedown. Not that the bastard deserved it, he almost forced her to kill Harry more than a few times. It was so lucky that Harry-kun was apparently much better at dodging than she'd thought, he was even pulling off some spectacular tricks to evade the senbon which was leaving a warm feeling deep inside...

_'No, must stop thinking like that, Harry-kun is... __**Harry**__ is an enemy. Zabuza-sama wants him dealt with.'_

Maybe a different angle would... That bastard Uchiha is getting better at following movements.

Sasuke could feel something changing. The masked nin looked to be slowing down. He also felt like he was slowing down, which was a problem, but so long as he could get behind the doe when an attack came it didn't matter.

Harry avoided another wave of needles, though he was deflecting more and more with his kunai as time went on. He turned briefly to see how the teme was doing as he shifted through stances and he almost lost his footing in shock. The bastard's eyes were evolving! Instead of one little comma mark in each eye he could now see two 'tomoe's in his left eye whilst the right stayed the same.

A shout from across the bridge halted the battle. The mirror jutsu dropped as the masked hunter-nin stepped out of one of them and looked over to where the elder shinobi had stopped fighting. Haku began walking towards Zabuza when Sasuke's voice called out arrogantly. "What's the matter, coward? Running back to hide behind your master?"

Haku turned and glared at the boy. "If I were you, Uchiha-san, I would be glad of the truce Zabuza-sama has called. It will give you time to lick your wounds and rest before I have a chance to end you."

Sasuke snarled and prepared a Katon jutsu. Before he could finish forming the hand-seals, however, Haku sent a few senbon his way, knowing he would have to stop in order to dodge.

Sasuke had other plans and, instead of dodging, grabbed Harry by the scruff of his collar and pulled the boy into the path of the senbon.

Harry, by instinct alone, managed to Kawarimi with some debris and was not harmed, much to Haku, Kakashi and Anko's relief. Sasuke quickly dodged out of the way of the senbon, the damage, and the intent behind the manoeuvre, however, could not be so easily avoided.

Kakashi was absolutely furious that someone, not to mention a leaf nin, would do that to one of his own students, in front of him no less. Anko was beside herself and Naruto, as he climbed over the side of the bridge, was treated to the sight of his brother, his sensei and his Dango-chan advancing on the Uchiha bastard with killing intent thick in the air.

Zabuza was about to make a snide comment when he suddenly heard activity coming from the other end of the bridge and turned to see what was going on.

Sasuke was spared immediate retribution by the arrival of a rag tag army of thugs looking to be at least a few hundred strong, on the other side of the bridge, led by a diminutive man wearing a crisp business suit and looking decidedly out of place, both with the thugs and on a building site/battleground.

"What the hell Momochi? Why aren't these upstarts dead? What are you doing just standing around for?" The businessman yelled out over the distance between them.

"Never mind that, Gato, what's with the mercs?" Zabuza yelled back.

"Ah, well you see, there has been a change of plans. I'm afraid I'm going to have to _terminate_ our association." The stocky businessman giggled at his own little pun. "You see, there's really no point in paying for your services as well as for those of my men, so I've decided to let them collect the nice little bounty on your head, after that then we'll see about taking care in these bothersome punks you seem unable to deal with. Last but not least, I'm gonna turn the boys loose on this rebellious little bridge builder and his family."

Sakura smirked, she'd finally found a target for her genjutsu and **Demonic Influence; Bad Judgement** was working a treat on Gato's weak mind, riling up Zabuza and turning every ninja present against him was definitely one of the worst decisions he would have ever made. Zabuza and his bastard apprentice had been throwing off every genjutsu she'd tried laying on them for the whole battle and it was nice to see her hard earned skills actually working on someone. A weak-minded civilian, sure, but beggars can't be choosers, it was better than nothing and she had to start somewhere, all that rubbish.

What followed was an exercise in brutality that would not be swiftly forgotten by anyone who witnessed it. It started by the almost simultaneous multi-execution of Zabuza perpetrated by almost everyone on their end of the bridge. In short order Gato was struck by a flying cleaver, a wave of senbon, a Grand Fireball, a Water Dragon Missile, three kunai, eight snakes, a hail of shuriken, an aardvark, a frying pan, Tazuna's spare sake-jug ("OI! Stop taking those!") and a partridge in a pear tree. Naruto was grinning as he threw the last one, his own private joke.

Seeing their employer turned into an indescribable heap of flesh shocked the mercenaries for a few seconds before one yelled; "Hey, they just killed our pay check!"

"They're ninja!"

"So? We outnumber them like fifty to one."

"Yeah!"

Zabuza turned to look at Kakashi, before both turned to look at the little blonde Genin stood near the side of the bridge.

Kakashi couldn't help but comment; "That's just cruel." To which a grinning Zabuza replied; "They don't call me the Demon of the Mist for nothing."

Kakashi gave it some thought and decided that it would be good for the boy to get his first kill out of the way sooner rather than later. "You want to help me back him up?"

"Meh, I've gotta go get my sword back either way, killing a few cretins on the way is just a bonus."

"Point. Naruto, if you would please do the honours..."

Naruto grinned and with a cry of " Tajuu Kage Bushin no Justu!" the majority of the watching mercenaries voided their bowels. It didn't help when an over-enthusiastic Inari arrived, shot one poor bastard through the shin with a crossbow, and was swiftly backed up by the majority of the population of Wave.

There was a unanimous decision made then and there that would, in the presence of an Aburame, call into question the possibility of a human hive-mind equivalent among bandits. As it was the particular thought patterns of that clan were absent but the thought patterns that were able to observe the incident were, on the whole, amused by the simultaneous yet uncoordinated retreat of some 400 mercenaries.

All in all, that night was one of celebration and rejoicing for the 'good guys'. Well, Sasuke was placed under a probationary arrest for betraying a teammate and nearly killing him in the process. Anko had decided to drag the boy back to Konoha herself immediately rather than keep him out in the field with the attitude he was displaying. His excuse of "The doe should be honoured to give his worthless life to protect an Uchiha" fell on deaf ears as Anko literally grabbed him by his ear and dragged him off towards Konoha. Kakashi hoped she continued with the treatment all the way there.

Yes it was a good night to be in Wave and there was much rejoicing by everyone.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO MY BRIDGE?"

Well... almost everyone.

Naruto, and to a lesser extent Harry and Kakashi, had been put to work with his Kage Bushin over the next two weeks repairing, refitting, and finishing Tazuna's bridge. Sakura spent her time practicing, with their consent, her genjutsu abilities on several citizens of Wave. Harry threw himself back into his taijutsu training whenever he wasn't working on the bridge. Inari had even asked for lessons so he'd had one of his clones teaching the boy the basics of the Academy's style. Naruto used his free time either learning how to cook from Tsunami or reading his new collection of novels.

For some reason, as their time in Wave drew to a close, some of Naruto's clones started to behave rather oddly. More oddly than usual, that was. One or two even came out looking a bit weird. Harry could have sworn one of the final batch of clones made before the bridge was completed had a deep green tinge to it's skin.

It was the end of their time in Wave and all of the ninja assembled in front of Tazuna's completed bridge with the majority of Wave's inhabitants there to see them off.

Harry smiled at Tazuna's thoughtful parting gift. He spared the plaque one last look before he turned to head off after his team. Even if he was a member in name only, he felt a warm sense of acknowledgement that The Great Uzumaki Bridge would be a monument to his family for many years to come.

Walking on the way back to Konoha, Kakashi decided that it would be best if they took their time in returning to the village so that he could straighten some things out with his team. Starting on the one he had the most questions for he pulled Naruto away from the others.

"Alright, Naruto, it's time you answered a few questions. First, where the hell did you find a mythical bird. Second how did you manage to convince it to carry you half way across Wave Country? Third, how are you performing a solid Henge when they're supposed to be just illusions? Oh and finally," Kakashi pointed at Zabuza and Haku as they walked slightly ahead of the two chatting to Harry and Sakura respectively, "how in Kami's name did you convince those two to come back to Konoha with us?"

"Erm..." Naruto rubbed the back of his head whilst giving a trademark grin. "Dunno."

"Naruto, please."

"Fine... I don't know about the legendary bird but I think you mean the clone I flew to the bridge on, yes? That's just another use I've found for my Henge. I can't do the normal one for some reason, neither can Harry so we came up with a different version after some old notes we found in one of ojii-san's books. As for Zabs over there, I told him that if he were living in Konoha then he wouldn't need to be on the run from hunter nin all the time and Harry pointed out that his apprentice could live in peace because we don't hate bloodlines like they do in Kiri."

"Right, I'm going to want to see the notes you looked at, making your own jutsu can be dangerous when you don't have supervision or experience to help guide and protect you."

"Gotcha Kakashi-sensei." Naruto said with glee and made to walk towards where Harry and Zabuza were talking.

Seeing their conversation draw to a close, Kakashi decided to confront Zabuza next. Getting the large man away from the younger shinobi was easy. Finding a way to approach the subject he wished to discuss in a way that would be as non-threatening and polite as possible would prove to be a more interesting challenge. That was until Zabuza beat him to it.

"You're worried I might be plotting sabotage." he stated bluntly.

"Hm... Am I that obvious?" Kakashi asked, somewhat dismayed that he had been read so easily.

"No. You are, however a decent shinobi and that would be one of the first things a decent shinobi would expect from an almost unknown adversary."

"True, so how do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't, though I'm sure your village has a policy or something in place for dealing with defectors to root out potential insurgents so I wouldn't be too worried."

"Fair point, so what are you gonna do if you get accepted?"

"Meh, probably eke out a living doing some assassination missions from time to time. I'd like to keep Haku as my apprentice though, we've been together for about four years now..." Zabuza trailed off as his eyes suddenly looked not ahead, but towards somewhere in the past.

"I'm sure the Sandaime will... wait did you say Haku?"

"Yeah,"

"As in _the _Haku?" Kakashi asked slightly louder and turned to look at Harry. Said boy turned his face away in embarrassment as Naruto fought to hide his grin.

Kakashi looked at Haku for a moment, who was caught off by the sudden attention, before turning back to Naruto. "I thought you said Haku was a boy."

Now it was Haku's turn to look embarrassed as Naruto loudly exclaimed; "He is a boy!"

Kakashi made as incredulous a face as he could with only one eye showing and pointed out; "She moves like a girl, has all the mannerisms of a girl, talks like a girl, smells like a girl and has no Adam's Apple."

Naruto and Harry looked at the blushing girl in front of them with amazement and shock when she didn't protest their sensei's accusations.

"It was the easiest way to make sure you didn't follow me or come looking for me after we parted." Haku said in a quiet voice.

Zabuza was nearly in tears from trying to hold his laughter in, Sakura was confused, like Naruto and Kakashi had a smile so wide it threatened to break the cover of his mask. Harry, however, took things a different way.

"Ha! I told you I wasn't gay for fancying Haku!" Suddenly regretting that rather major slip, he clamped his hand in front of his mouth in some vague instinctual attempt to stop the words from having been spoken, but was to no avail as Kakashi and Zabuza cracked up right there and then.

Haku's blush nearly doubled in intensity and she had trouble looking Harry in the eyes. Sakura was confused and more than a little wary. If this 'girl' had managed to seduce Harry, who like Sasuke had never really looked twice her way, in the short amount of time they had spent together then she could be a potential rival for _her _Sasuke-kun. She'd have to sort the girl out at some point before they made it back home, make it absolutely clear just _who_ was destined to be with _whom_.

The rest of the journey back was mostly uneventful. There was the incident during the night after they'd set up watch rotations, where Sakura's head had somehow ended up encased in a block of ice. Haku had, of course, been questioned but the only reply they'd gotten was that Sakura should be more careful with who she insulted in people's presences.

As he was once more settling down to sleep after Sakura's head had been defrosted, Harry caught some rather embarrassing murmurs coming from his brother's bedroll.

_"Hnn... Pretty pink hair... Sak'a-chan... shiny pink."_

_'Mental note,'_ Harry thought as he watched Naruto mumble about Sakura in his half dazed state, _'Dye Hinata's hair an unusual colour to see if it attracts Naruto.'_

He thought about it for a second before adding; _'Addendum, tell her about the plan first.'_

A minute passed by before, _'Addendum 2, DON'T tell her about it first and watch for major giggle points'_

_'Addendum 3, mental salute to Major Gigglepoints'_

_'Addendum 4, institute prank rating system with Naruto based on "Giggle-Points" for how amusing a prank is. Monthly loser must subject themselves to a forfeit.'_

Satisfied with his new mental resolutions Harry turned his mind to what colour he could dye Hinata's hair and how to get away with it before he eventually succumbed to sleep.

Before long the group were signing in their rather intimidating companions at the main gates and making their way towards the Hokage's office.

After a long and interesting tale the Hokage had ended up approving the two probationary residency in Konoha under the stipulation that they be escorted or observed at all times and submitted themselves to ANBU T&I Dept. daily for profiling and threat assessment until Ibiki deemed them safe. He'd then gone on to chew Kakashi out about taking on an A-rank mission with a rookie genin team, of all things to do. He was mollified, however as he was forced to admit that they had come back with an A-Rank defector and his apprentice, a new bloodline for Konoha and the endearment and gratitude of a strategically placed minor country.

After handing over the pay for an A-rank to each of Team 7 with his congratulations and informing them that they were now mandated at least a week's rest for their efforts he dismissed them with a smile.

Upon leaving the Hokage's office, Harry decided to go for it. Mentally fortifying himself, he motioned for Haku to hang back a second with him and came close to blurting out in a voice he hoped didn't sound too pathetic; "Hey, would you like to go get something to eat? Maybe I could show you around since you're new to the village."

Haku smiled as she replied; "Sorry, Harry-kun but Zabuza-sama and I need to check in with this Ibiki person and find somewhere to live whilst we stay here." Seeing his face drop she quickly added, "How about this weekend?"

Harry perked up; "Sure, I know this great little place not too far from here, how about we meet up on Saturday, say eight o'clock?"

Haku quickly agreed. "I'll meet you outside the tailors across the street."

"Great, I'll see you then, Haku-chan!" Harry grinned as broad as his face would allow and then, when nothing else came to mind, gave the girl a quick hug before running off after his team.

Haku blushed fiercely as she finally left the building, only to see Zabuza smirking at her through his face-wrappings. "Sooo... How'd it go?" he drawled, clearly amused.

"Shut up."

"Do I need to give you The Talk?"

"No you most certainly do not!" Haku flushed even more.

"Should I be putting the fear of Kami in the boy?"

"If anyone's going to make Harry-ku... Harry-san piss himself in fright then it's going to be me. Please stay out of it, Zabuza-sama."

"Now that I'd like to see. Kakashi's little brats need to be taken down a peg."

"Are you still sore about him getting one over on you during that first fight?" Haku knew exactly where to push Zabuza's buttons, especially if it detracted away from the subject of her date.

"He did not get one over on me! I beat each of them down fair and square when they came at me!"

"That's not how it looked from where I was standing."

"You little...!"

In his office the Sandaime Hokage sighed as he reached for another piece of paperwork. He had had a bad feeling all day and he wasn't entirely sure it didn't have something to do with Harry-kun's birthday the following week. Scratching the itchy spot on his nose, he was about to stamp a 'Denied' on Danzo's weekly attempt to get at Harry and Naruto when something about the paper made him pause. It was asking for a special medical test be done to ascertain the Kyuubi's chakra hadn't 'infected' or 'influenced' Harry into befriending Naruto. Thinking for a minute, he went over to one of the filing cabinets at the other end of his office.

Pulling out Harry's file, he checked his medical records, then the Academy records. There was a brief summary of the operation to fix the boy's eyes and several routine check-ups but there was one thing that was only obviously missing if you were looking for it. It wasn't vital, though a bit strange that it'd never happened. A quick check of Naruto's file showed the same thing.

Shaking his head, Hiruzen replaced the files, moved back to behind his desk and began filling out the required forms for a Byakugan chakra-pathway exam for his two charges. _'Might as well.'_ he thought, clearly not expecting anything unusual, well unexpected would be the proper term. Bureaucracy what it was, the hospital probably wouldn't get the forms for another week, even then it'd take some time to find an available Hyuuga medic, but there was a reason for these tests and it should go some way to help Kakashi figure out the 'strange chakra behaviour' in the two.

Satisfied with a job well done, the Hokage felt he could treat himself to a few minutes with his favourite orange book and a quick smoke of his pipe. Yes indeed, a job well done.

Ten minutes later his secretary put a stop to it when the sound of perverted giggles could be heard in the next room over.

The weekend came quickly and Harry arrived in front of the Hokage Tower early just to be sure. He'd dressed up as much as he'd been able to. His grey muscle-shirt and brown jacket had been replaced with a forest green shirt that the woman in the shop said complemented his eyes. His combat trousers and shinobi boots had been swapped for dress shoes and a pair of black suit-trousers. He also had a deep navy blue jacket to stave off any chill breezes the night might bring. All in all he felt fairly confident in his appearance, even if he still couldn't do anything about his hair. He'd tried channeling chakra through a comb to see if that'd help but all he succeeded in doing was melting the comb and giving himself a frizzy afro hairstyle that had thankfully settled down by the time he was ready to leave.

When he saw how Haku looked, however, he immediately became extremely self-conscious. She stood outlined in the doorway of the tailor's shop with a radiance that seemed separate from the fading light of the setting sun or the muted glow of street signs. Her hair was done up in its usual knot with a small purple flower pin holding it in place, she wore an icy-blue cheongsam that showed off her developing figure nicely, with a matching purse held in delicately white-gloved hands and a pair of silver shoes that finished off the package.

She spotted him as he stopped dead in the middle of the street. Her mouth quirked into a smile as she saw his jaw drop and eyes widen. Strutting over to him she struck a pose and asked coyly; "Like what you see?"

"Gfnrkbl."

Haku giggled a little and took his arm in hers. "Good answer" she commented as he snapped out of his little daze, "Now where is this marvellous eatery you've been telling me about?"

"Uh..." He mentally shook himself out of his daze and took control before he did/said anything stupid while he wasn't thinking. "It's down here, a little out of the way, but well worth the experience."

With that slightly cryptic comment he began leading her down a side-street. Two rather bare back-streets and an alley later and they were stood atop a set of stairs. Haku was beginning to look a bit apprehensive at the direction this date was going but the cheeky smile on Harry's face reassured her for the moment. Harry led the way as they descended to the basement entrance. A short corridor later and Harry, grinning madly, opened the final door with a flourish. Haku gasped as she took in the sight before her.

Opulence was the watchword for this particular restaurant. Magnificent grecian columns supported the high arched ceiling, decorated with carvings and reliefs of flowers, vines and leaves that gave the illusion that stone trees had sprouted from the floor and formed a solid canopy overhead. Four dozen tables clothed in white cloth stood dotted around on the rich mahogany floor that shined in the reflected light of twenty chandeliers. Booths towards the rear wall were slightly more shaded than those on the main floor, allowing for more private dinners. Several were already occupied, as were most of the main tables.

Haku and Harry were greeted by a very formal man in full tuxedo and directed to a reserved booth to the muted sound of string instruments playing in the background. Haku felt something off. The man, as well as the waitress who came to take their drinks order, had a sense of power, of strength about them. When questioned about it Harry smiled and said; "This is a shinobi restaurant. Everyone who works here is at least chunin rank. The maitre-de by the door was in ANBU, apparently and is now the co-owner or something. Hokage-ji-san told me about this place a while ago."

Haku felt very intimidated by the place and stunned that it could exist in such an out-of-the-way back alley. Then again, Zabuza-sama had told her about the various jounin bars in the hidden villages being sequestered away where no civilian in their right mind would go to look for them.

Settling herself, she stopped thinking about it and just concentrated on enjoying their was fun and the only incident came when they had finished their desserts and the waitress came over with the bill. A quick glance at the upside down document nearly had her spitting out the last of her drink in shock.

Harry seemed unfazed and paid it off quickly. When they were alone again, Haku leaned over the table and hissed to him. "Harry! This dinner cost the same as a B-rank mission!"

"So?" he asked

"That's too much! Let me pay you back..." she didn't get much further as he pressed a finger to her lips which instead led to a rather cute pout.

Harry smiled and said calmly "You paid me back by going out with me. In case you forgot me and Naruto both got the pay for an A-rank mission not four days ago. Not to mention the finders-fee for bringing two new ninja to the village. I'm sure we could have pushed for a portion of the bounty on Zabuza but I think that'd have been pushing it. Besides, I asked you out so it's my treat so that's final."

Feeling like grumbling just for the hell of it Haku began; "But..."

"If you really want to pay me back then you can help me with a little project I'm working on."

"Oh, what's that?" Haku was intrigued by the devilish smirk that adorned Harry's face.

"We're gonna dye the Hyuuga heiress' hair neon green in order to set her up with my brother."

...

"Alright, I'm in."

There was a shiver that passed through the spines of nearly every ninja in the village that night. The source of this phenomenon would forever remain unknown, however it would be recorded in ANBU history that that was the day that Yuki Haku joined the group that would eventually be called The Seven Devils. They, of course always referred to themselves as The Prank-Lords but the people who made the bingo books never responded to their messages and pleas to change it. They stopped after one issue of the books referred to the group as the Pink Pixie Wanabee Fairies of Cuddliness. The messages (read pranks) stopped and copies that particular batch of bingo books would eventually become one of the most sought after pieces of literature outside of the Icha Icha novels.

*** Anyone who can tell me where this quote comes from gets absolutely uber amounts of respect and cyber-cookies.**


	9. Complimentary Filler Episode

"Kakashi-sensei, please, can't you make them stop?" Sakura whined at her sensei. The stupid pirate mission was still there when they had returned from Wave Country and their week-long break was over so it was either that or more D-rank missions. Needless to say they'd taken it. Now Harry and Naruto were wreaking their own special brand of havoc on board the boat to Sea Country.

*Sigh* "What are they doing now Sakura?"

"They've gotten the crew to start singing."

On the one hand Kakashi could see how Sakura could take offence, the rowdy songs sailors were known to sing would definitely offend someone of her sensibilities. On the other hand, she was supposed to be a ninja and would have to get used to the seedier side of life if she were to survive.

"I know it may be distressing for you but as a ninja you have to get used to this sort of thing on missions." he told her gently.

"I may be a ninja but I never signed up for this!" With that she opened the window and the sounds of sailors singing drifted into the room.

_"Hey, ho, we'll go._

_Anywhere the wind is blowing!_

_Strong and brave are weeeee!"_

With an annoyed shriek, the pinkette slammed the window shut and turned on her sensei. "Well?"

"I happen to like Muppet Treasure Island, as long as they don't get to Cabin Fever, I see nothing wrong with them having a little fun to blow off some of the steam built up from our last mission." Kakashi announced as he started to hum along with the song in his head. Tempted to rip her hair out in frustration, Sakura stomped out of the room leaving Kakashi murmuring _"sailing for adventure on the deep blue sea."_

Sakura stomped off, hopefully someone somewhere on this boat would be immune to the growing insanity that was her two team-mates. She finally made her way down to the galley but ended up almost tearing her hair out when she found the cook did in fact have a wooden leg and a pet parrot called Polly. Shrieking her frustration to the world she disappeared up into her cabin, vowing not to leave until sanity returned.

The ship's cook was rather startled as he left the washroom in the galley to hear the female ninja the captain had hired shriek and storm off, only to be doubly surprised as a one legged man with a bird on his shoulder appeared out of his galley and turned into the dark haired boy of the team. Said boy winked at him before wandering off back up on deck. Shaking his head the cook went back to seeing about the day's dinner and dismissed the event from his mind.

Two weeks of sailing around the coast of Sea country had paid off little in the way of action and team 7 were bored. Kakashi was still reading his book, but had also come up with the bright idea to have his team train in water walking. To that end two platforms had been rigged up out of the ship's extra planking they used for quick repairs in case of emergency and a pair of life-boats. These two floats drifted behind the ship, one behind the other. The team would be left on the first float and told to try and run back to the ship. When they failed and instead dropped into the water they would either wait or swim back to the second floating raft, climb aboard and then jump back to the first raft to begin the exercise again.

Sakura had completed the exercise first. Well, she had managed to get water walking down first, Kakashi had her then doing shuttle runs back and forth to build up her stamina. Harry and Naruto still came back up to the boat every day soaked to the bone and more than a little tired. Naruto had stopped training using his clones as they were starting to behave oddly. The last time he'd tried to whip up a batch they'd declared some kind of five-way war between themselves, yelling stage obscenities and had kept at it until Kakashi had made him dispel them all. Naruto wanted to try and get back into his subconscious but Kakashi had forbidden him from doing it until they had a mind-walker like Inoichi on hand. He instead spent his spare time either reading, trying to get the crew to teach him stuff or talking to Harry about new seal ideas. Harry had given up on attempting offensive sealing techniques and had instead turned his attention to defence. Surprisingly this was a lot easier to achieve whilst at the same time being rather convolutedly difficult.

Seals that slowed physical movement were useful but could just as easily affect the user as the target if proper care wasn't taken. He'd discovered an old training method using gravity seals that was scrapped when people's chakra control and balance went out the window, insanely heavy impacts from short jumps that broke bones and some instances of people simply sinking into the earth did not help improve opinions. They might be useful to trap someone with though. Resistance seals would have been a possibility for training but the whole point of being able to move that fast was rendered obsolete if your mind wasn't used to keeping up with the speeds. That idea was quickly scrapped.

Barrier seals was his next on the list to look at and looked particularly promising. The only problem was each chakra affinity had to be taken into account as did non-elemental chakra which, given the amount of time needed to set the seals up, usually meant they were impractical for combat. Fortunately Harry had his way around it with his projection jutsu.

This was how the sailors came to find the boy standing on the rear flotilla after water-walking training, surrounded by a weird golden dome as Kakashi stood on the forward float reading his book.

"Are you sure about this?" Kakashi asked, still not looking up from the precious Icha Icha. Normally he'd have been outright against the idea of throwing some powerful ninjutsu at one of his students as they stood behind a very questionable barrier-thing. This was one of the Uzumakis, however, and vengeance... no, payback... no, turn-about, that sounded sufficiently non-homicidal, was fair play in his book.

"Look, it's fairly simple." Harry shouted back, sounding muffled slightly through the barrier, "you throw a few low powered elemental techniques at the barrier which I shift to block the different attacks. I have the seals for the different ones burned into the wood and all I need to do is channel chakra to the one that matches the element you use. If it works, then all is good and you start shifting attacks faster to see if I can keep up. If it doesn't work you please try not to kill me and I go back to the drawing board."

Still a little uneasy Kakashi asked; "So what if it all goes terribly wrong and blows up in your face?"

Naruto's haunting voice drifted down in answer; "Then I will have to pay you back for hurting my nii-san."

Definitely not wanting to experience the horror that was a pissed off Uzumaki with too much time and itching powder to hand, Kakashi suppressed a shudder and the emergence of half-repressed memories before anyone noticed. _'Damn it Kakashi, are you or are you not a jounin?'_

Flashing through a few quick hand-seals he called out a "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu" and launched a wave of small fireballs at the boy. Light flared and the golden glow of the barrier changed to an ever-shifting red as the flames stuck it and were extinguished.

"Suiton: Teppodama no Jutsu" was countered by a flowing blue-green wall just before it swapped to a crackling yellow-white as "Raiton: Raikyu no Jutsu" followed it up. "Doton: Domu" and "Futon: Renkudan no Jutsu" were stopped by their own barriers of solid brown and glowing gold respectively, though the earth spear nearly went through, as Kakashi looked on, clearly impressed. He began to form the seals for one of the few Shadow style techniques he knew but stopped, thinking things through and asked instead; "Harry, do you have a Shadow barrier?"

Harry lowered the glowing wind shield and hopped over to talk to his sensei on the same platform. "That's actually the main thing I wanted to test. I couldn't find a specific barrier against shadow techniques so I was hoping my plain chakra barrier would be enough to stop one. If not, I'm gonna need to look up some more books."

"Yeah, look grab Naruto and Sakura and tell them both to come to my room, I think I need to explain a few things."

Soon the three were ensconced in the Jounin's small cabin bunk. He and Sakura both had their own rooms on board whilst Harry and Naruto shared. They didn't mind, they were used to it. Harry had the makings of a black eye for wandering into Sakura's room whilst she was dressing out of her training clothes, and another for commenting that he didn't deserve one for looking at things that small without a microscope, but apart from that all was as normal.

Kakashi sat down on the footlocker he'd stood up in the corner whilst the other three got comfortable on the bed, that being the only other piece of furniture in the tiny room.

"Right, now we're all her it's time I explained more about chakra elements. You all now about affinities to elements but the main question I need to address is what the elements actually _are_." Kakashi began, hoping they could understand this quicker than he had, the Yondaime might have been thorough in his teachings and research on chakra but he could sure make it boring when he forgot who he was talking to and started talking about quirks or quacks or something. What quirky ducks had to do with chakra he had no idea.

"To start off, chakra exists in eight states. Natural chakra is all around us but is dangerous and extremely difficult to harness, let alone use. Then there is un-affiliated chakra, basically what you use to do the academy jutsu, your tree and water walking exercises and any non-elemental ninjutsu. Then there are the six elemental chakra types; fire, water, light, wind, shadow and earth."

Seeing everyone keeping up he pressed on, hoping he made sense. "These eight states can be roughly divided into three categories; Physical chakras, Energy chakras and Transformational chakras. Physical chakras are easy to explain. Everything exists in one of three states, either as solid, liquid or as a gas. Using the correct elemental chakra allows for the mastery of these states of being. Earth chakra gives the user to manipulate solid objects, water grants power over liquids and wind allows mastery of gasses. Is that clear so far?"

Sakura spoke first. "So earth users don't just manipulate earth?"

"No, though most don't realise it they can, with enough training, manipulate any solid object they find. It takes a great deal of concentration and knowledge of what the object is made up of to do with any mastery though. Earth is used because it is easier to train using the catch-all method of sending lots of earth chakra into the ground and manipulating what you can. If you train with a solid substance enough using earth chakra you can gain a mastery over it, just like with a liquid and water-chakra and with a gas and wind chakra. Water and air, like earth, occur naturally so that is what most ninja train with and that is what most ninja use in their techniques."

Moving swiftly on; "Next are the three energy chakras and these I have no idea how to explain, but they are light, natural and unaffiliated. They are simply energy, pure and simple. I may have a light affinity but it, to me can best be described as an instinct or feeling rather than a physical thing. Someone once tried to explain that light was once thought of as being electricity manipulation but had been discovered through an experiment to actually be pure photos or something. Natural chakra is like the overflow of energy that living things give off seeping into the environment whereas un-affiliated chakra is the chakra your body produces on its own from your food and muscles."

"Finally there is Transformational chakra, the last two; fire and shadow. These are called transformational chakras because they convert either physical substances into energy or energy into physical objects, destruction and creation. Fire is destruction, it uses fuel to turn flammable things into energy this is why Katon jutsu are purely offensive techniques, all they can do is destroy. Shadow is creation because it uses energy to create physical objects out of nothing. They are the only techniques that can do this. Other chakra energies only manipulate what is already there, shadow creates."

Looking up after his lengthy explanation he saw the three were still looking at him with wide eyes. "Kai!" the genjutsu broke and the three snoring genin were revealed. After waking them and running through the explanation again, this time making sure they were paying attention he sent them off to their rooms to think about what he had told them. Mumbling about ungrateful students who should be lucky to have heard, even indirectly, the Yondaime's advanced teachings, Kakashi settled down on his vacated bed and once more withdrew his book.

He was interrupted by the loud approach of one of the crew members and their banging on his door. A quick sigh and he was up asking what the man wanted.

"We found them!" Kakashi heard from the man he recognised as the one who taught Naruto sailor's-knots and therefore the one responsible for the net trap that had awoken him three days prior.

"Who?" he asked with a slight glare.

"The pirates!"

It had been a good day for the crew of the 'Kuroshinju'. They had successfully raided one of the smaller market-towns on the south-eastern coast of Sea country and they had begun celebrating when it was clear there was no-one in pursuit. Rum stocks were plummeting and the sake had long since disappeared but they would still have enough to make their drunken meandering way back to their base. That was when the captain had, in his own staggering meandering way that often had nothing to do with alcohol, spotted a ship on the horizon. He didn't think much of it as it was heading from a completely different direction than whence they had come.

Then it had turned on an intercepting course.

Cannon-fire and an entire afternoon of trying to get drunk/hungover/sleeping crew members to outmanoeuvre an attacking ship had not gone so well in nursing the captain's own substantial hangover. When he was convinced that the enemy ship's boarding party had been accompanied by a dragon made of water he decided that enough was enough. Time was past that he be gone, and with that in mind he had lowered a lifeboat, laden with a fair few of the crew's ill-gotten gains and proceeded to do a runner.

He stood with a jovial smile aboard his small craft and somehow managed to swagger whilst remaining completely still, his eyes trained upon his would-be attackers as they stared after him from the bow of his ship.

"Goodbye my friends!" He shouted back to them, as he waved his tricorn hat in a mock salute, "Know that this will be the day you forever remember as the day you _almost _caught Captain... Jack..."

Three of the invading forces had leapt from the ship's decks, but instead of splashing into the depths of the sea like any good human should, they proceeded to run after him on top of the ocean waves.

"Bugger!"

Time moved slowly for Namikaze Minato. It also moved painfully. Eleven years of being digested by the very spiritual entity of Death would do that to a soul. It was to his great surprise, then that the pain suddenly vanished and that the cloying darkness and pressure lifted from his being, allowing him to see the very entity that had consumed his soul as payment for services rendered. Those services being the sealing of the most powerful of demonic entities inside the man's only son to protect his village from destruction.

"Minato." The Shinigami intoned in a voice like the sound of tomb doors slamming shut.

"Shinigami? Where are we?"

"You still reside in my stomach. I am here to make you an offer."

"If we're in your stomach then how are you here talking to me?"

"That is not important."

"I thought it was pertinent."

"You have been chosen, Yellow Flash of Konoha, to be my representative on your plane." The great and terrible spirit carried on as if nothing had been said.

"You still haven't answered my question."

"You will be tasked with seeking out the corrupt and the wicked and bringing them to justice. You will obey my orders absolutely or the consequences will be dire."

"To be honest it's just rude to ignore what I'm saying."

A set of studded motorcycle leathers appeared in front of Minato hanging in space. "You will wear these and your facial appearance shall be changed to that of a flaming skull so that none may recognise you."

"That makes no sense."

"If you please me in this I shall release your soul from within my stomach and you shall be free to ascend as you would have if not for our bargain. What say you?"

"So you want me to go back to the plane of the living?" Minato asked, giving up on the metaphysical anomaly of talking face to face with something whilst in its stomach.

"Yes."

"Dressed in leather?"

"Correct."

"Wander around the world 'punishing' men who have been 'bad'?"

"That is an accurate summation."

"All the while 'flaming'?"

"Do you have a point?"

"Yeah, this is the gayest thing I've ever heard."

"..." The Death God made no comment.

"Do I at least have a non-gay-sounding name to accompany this new persona?"

"Yes you will be..." the voice of a thousand coffin lids being nailed shut stopped to consider this question... "You may chose your own moniker."

"I don't have to say anything stupid when I kill someone do I? Like 'Death for the Death God' or something?"

"That will not be required."

"Can I?"

"Do you want the job or not?"

"Fine, one last question though, why me?"

"Your son needs you."

**A/N: I know several die hard fans will be out after my blood for this chapter but just to remind you; 'This isn't canon!'**

**This is my story made purely to amuse and entertain and not to stick religiously to the works of Kishimochachocalattayaya or whatever his name is that owns Naruto. My story, my rules and in my world Muppet Treasure Island comes out five years before it does in the real world and nothing you can say to me will change my mind!**

**That said, enjoy! oh, and REVIEW!**


	10. An unexpected letter

"So let me get this straight. My son, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze has adopted a wizard-boy into his mother's clan, moved into my old house with said wizard-boy, whom he is also on a genin team with and who will shortly be introduced into the wizarding world, as will my son, my old genin, Kakashi-kun, and their pink-haired teammate. Am I right so far?"

"That is accurate."

"You want to send me back to the realm of the living because there are some kind of magic soul draining wizardy creatures out there that will try and latch on to Naruto and his adoptive brother and drain them of their magic and chakra. This will then either release the Kyuubi, overload the creature and cause it to explode with enough power to wipe out three small countries or give the thing enough power to take over the entire world, ninja, wizard and normal folk alike."

"Those are the most likely outcomes."

"All the while in the background, there's a collection of S ranked super criminals who are trying to kidnap all bijuu for themselves, the wizard-boy's godfather who is apparently a falsely-convicted criminal out for revenge against the man who killed his best friend, a senile old wizard-teacher who has apparently locked away most of the wizard-boy's powers out of some crazy scheme to give him a 'normal' upbringing, oh and not one, but two snake-obsessed homicidal maniacs with god-complexes and unhealthy obsessions with small boys, trying for immortality, one of which is my sensei's old teammate and the other who is already technically dead but not quite at the hands of the wizard-boy."

"That is a fair summation of the major problems in the world at large."

"...I need to lie down for a while."

Sarutobi took a happy drag of his pipe as the day drew to a close. It was Friday and the only piece of paperwork left on his desk was the weekly incident report on Konoha's genin teams. This had long since become his favourite part of the week's paperwork as there was guaranteed to be at least one amusing incident or anecdote among the young ninja teams, even going so far back as to his first tenure as Hokage there was, more often than not, someone gunning for the role of prankster of the week.

Several things immediately stood out as being out of the norm, especially among the rookie teams. Going through them in order, he found that Naruto and Harry had apparently been spending time 'training' several Academy students, his grandson included. This had led to several incidents of 'indecent exposure' around the Academy and the local area by females resembling the notable pranksters. A pink haired woman had been spotted trespassing in the Uchiha compound but the only two people in Konoha with that particular coloration both had water-tight alibis and were claiming discrimination. Hyuuga Hinata had gone missing and, when tracked to a small, out of the way area of the Hyuuga compound, had refused to leave for several days due to some kind of embarrassing hair-related prank. Shikamaru Nara had apparently learned how to fall asleep whilst exercising, he'd have to talk to Asuma about that later. The Yamanaka and Aburame clan heirs had gotten into some kind of altercation due to a misunderstanding about the boy's request to have his bugs assist in the pollination of the girl's flowers. Anko's report, however, was the briefest and most worrying for him as it contained only four words _'In Forest of Death'_.

Somehow Sarutobi knew that when the paperwork for all of those events finally made it to his office he was going to have a major headache. Deciding that procrastination was in fact the better part of valour, he reached for his bag of tobacco to refill his pipe when a tapping sounded at his window.

Looking up curiously, he spotted an owl of all things sat on his windowsill holding a letter in its beak.

Scowling he lifted the end of his pipe to his nose and gave a cursory sniff. He then sniffed at the tobacco packet in his hand. Finally he focussed his chakra and sent out a small pulse through his system to dispel any genjutsu in the area. A couple of ANBU, snuggling up together in a very friendly way were revealed on the opposite rooftop but the owl still remained.

Coming to the swift conclusion that he was neither stoned, poisoned or under any illusionary influence he decided that the owl must, in fact, be real. Opening the window, he had time to step back before the bird swooped in, deposited the letter neatly on his desk and then left through the same window.

He stood watching the letter warily for a moment before moving back to his desk and pushing a small button that called for his secretary. When she entered, he asked her; "Do you see that letter on my desk?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama, but I don't remember it being in the paperwork I sent through."

"That's because an owl just dropped it off."

Hiruzen was met with a confused and incredulous stare for a second before the woman could school her features. "Do you want me to get rid of it Hokage-sama?"

"No, would you mind sending for Inoiki-san, though? I have a sneaking suspicion of who it's for but I'll need him or one of his teammates to translate it for me first. Thank you." He dismissed her almost absent-mindedly as his brain turned over the possibilities and implications of what the letter represented.

Harry and Haku had come up with a rather elegant little 'training' scheme. They would each pick a route through Konoha, leading from ANBU headquarters around town to meet back up outside the Hokage Tower, the Academy or the top of the Hokage Monument (depending on how they were feeling). They would then entrap their chosen course, inform the other of the route they should take and then get the ANBU to chase them. The winner would be the one who reached the target first, avoided the most traps on the way and captured the most of their pursuers instead. Bonus points were awarded for using their opponent's traps on the ANBU themselves.

Currently the wins were: Harry; 17, Haku; 8, but only because Harry had prior experience from his days running pranks with Naruto as civilians.

Harry sang as he placed trap tags all along the deserted backstreets of Konoha along the route he'd chosen for Haku to follow. "Whistle while you work... the council are all berks... Danzo's barmy, so's his army, ah-whistle while you work."

Unbeknownst to him various shinobi in ANBU uniform panicked at the boy's choice of lyrics and hastily made to inform their superior of the potential leak in their security. What was doubly worrying was that a mere genin had discovered the existence of the 'secret' organisation.

Harry stood up and cricked his back, having bent over to apply most of the tags. "Right, now that that's set... time for capture avoidance training. To ANBU HQ!"

A half hour later Inoiki, Chouza and Shikaku had all arrived in the Hokage's office. They'd been found drinking together in a bar near the onsen their wives were visiting and had decided to have a drink 'for old times sake'. It didn't matter to them that these 'old times' were about a week ago when their previous mission had ended, nor that they had gotten together for a drink practically every day the team were in Konoha. In light of all this, the fact that it wasn't even eleven o'clock yet didn't even enter their minds as an issue.

"Hokage-sama, did you know that there're currently thirty ANBU chasing after that new ice-user girl covered in tar, feathers and pink paint?" Inoiki asked to start off the discussion. Shikaku had mastered the art of falling asleep whilst walking a few months previously and, despite being perfectly upright, was lightly snoring. He had been that way since they left the bar and possibly before. Chouza was halfway through a bucket of fried chicken.

"No, why... Never mind, I'll call for Harry and Naruto later. Right now, I need you to translate this letter and tell me what you think." Hiruzen handed over the large velum envelope.

Grabbing it before Chouza's greasy fingers rendered it illegible, Inoiki elbowed Shikaku in a discrete manner when he noticed the name on the front in flowing green ink.

_"Harry Uzumaki-Namikaze-Potter, Main Bedroom, Uzumaki-Namikaze Estate, Konohagakure no Sato, Hi no Kuni, Elemental Nations, Earth, The Solus Solar System, Outer Spiral Arm 3L - Milky Way, Galactic Sector ZZ9 Pl. Z Alpha, PO Box 08231."_ They read together.

"That's oddly specific." Commented Chouza around a mouthful of BLT sandwich.

"How was this delivered, Hokage-sama?" Shikaku asked

"An owl tapped on the window until I let it in and then dropped it on my desk."

"So, either the sender is less than entirely mentally stable or has access to some kind of intergalactic space-travelling owls, which he apparently uses to deliver correspondence."

The rest of the meeting didn't go much better. Aside from wondering why the letter had come to Sarutobi's office instead of the Uzumaki Compound, swearing the three jounin to utter secrecy on the fact that the Uzumaki were also the Namikaze, and debating how best to break the news there wasn't much they could do without Harry present. It was his decision after all.

Naruto was feeling a little maudlin. He had let his sealing experiments take a back seat to all the ninjutsu training he'd been doing with Kakashi, well, going over the jutsu scrolls that Kakashi had given him while the man read his porn. Admittedly, Harry could now work faster and didn't have to invest in so much ink and paper any more but Naruto felt that he could still make contributions. He'd been the one to figure out how to change the shape of an explosive note's discharge, and he'd been the one to figure out where to change the seal in order to expel something other than fire.

That settled it, he'd prove he could still be a competent sealer... sealist... whatever, even if it was only to himself. Taking their latest acquisition from the library about elemental seals, he settled down in the lounge of the Uzumaki Clan House to work up some inspiration.

It was late that day when Harry returned to the house. He'd had a good training day with Haku and had gotten her to agree to another dinner date.

Opening the door to the living room Harry could see signs of the work spread out over every surface. It looked like a wind conversion seal, a percussion seal and a weird expulsion array all mixed in to one, but no power storage had been included. Thinking nothing of it he began gathering up some of the odds and ends lying around.

Ink bottles, brushes, crumpled bits of paper, some old Marvel comics and an empty Black Sabbath CD case all made their way up off the floor onto the table to be sorted through later.

Harry sat down at the table, grabbed an energy bar and started thumbing through the comics. All of a sudden he was struck with a brain wave. He looked up at the seal notes once again, then back down at the comics, then to the corner of the CD case sticking out from under the piles of notes.

"He wouldn't..." he murmured before rushing out to the back garden and towards the small clearing at the centre of their own personal forest.

He arrived seconds too late and heard his worst fears confirmed as with the backing of heavy metal blaring from a portable CD player and a cry of "I... AM... IRON MAN!" Harry's adopted brother used his newly invented 'flight' seals to propel himself into the air at high speed, crashing through the canopy overhead and shooting off into the distance.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was working later than he'd like with preparations for the first event of the Chunin exams Konoha would be playing host to this year, he was putting off calling Harry to discuss the letter after he'd had Inoiki write out a quick translation. He put down a completed form on top of a mission report and rubbed his temples to ease the ache he felt behind his eyes.

Out of no-where he began to hear a strange noise. Whatever it was, it was approaching fast. Standing and looking out the window he saw a strange and... screaming?... object approaching his office at high speeds.

Within seconds the object was close enough to be identified as Uzumaki Naruto, travelling at high velocity, headfirst. Hiruzen squared himself in preparation to catch the boy and save him from severely injuring himself.

He needn't have bothered, however, as just when he was about to come through the open window Naruto threw his hands out in front of him, some seals on them lit up and a blast of air spun him around so that his head was facing the way he had come and his feet were pointed directly at the window, and the Sandaime's face.

The Hokage's office was briefly subjected to winds of a force rarely seen outside of a high-powered fuuton jutsu, knocking the Hokage onto his backside and creating a paper hurricane of epic proportions. Naruto had disappeared long before any semblance of order could be restored.

Harry appeared a few seconds later and, seeing the chaos, wisely chose to leave without saying anything.

The Third Hokage looked around the mess his office had become, all his day's work practically undone in mere moments and one words came to his lips; "_**UZUMAKI**_!"

It had taken three hours to find and catch Naruto and probably would have taken longer if his out of control flight path hadn't shot him towards the Hokage monument and gotten him firmly wedged up the Nidaime's left nostril. Harry, Kakashi, Sarutobi Asuma and three ANBU with decent wind manipulation skills had then gotten to work cancelling out the wind jutsu Naruto was producing and, during a brief respite of the gales, had managed to safely disrupt the seals powering the jutsu.

By then night had fallen and the boys were sent back with promises of appropriate punishments to come in the morning. The pair were on their way home when Harry spotted a cat watching him from the next street over.

It wasn't scarred or muscly enough to be his eternal rival, the evil Tora, so he mostly ignored it. The only thing of note was he was mildly interested in the square shaped markings around it's eyes. If one squinted they could almost be mistaken for glasses.

**A/N: Sorry guys, but as well as everything and their mother happening this past few months, this chapter has been sitting in my computer exactly as you see here and I cannot think of a decent and rounded way to finish it off and move the story onward. To that end I'm posting it now, the shortest chapter of this whole story, before the frustration causes me to abandon the story entirely. Expect more from me soon, hopefully when I've gotten around this writers block and am actually working again.**


	11. Despair & Refusals

"ALBUS! Albus! I found him! He's safe!" The words, shouted by the usually calm and collected Professor of Transfiguration, echoed off of the walls of Hogwarts castle and cut through the unusually silent castle as if propelled by a sonorous charm.

Minerva McGonagle tore through the halls at a dead run, weaving around corners and suits of armour like a madwoman. Her exultant cry reverberated back to her from the high ceilings above as she rushed to the Headmaster's office. "He's free! He's happy! He has a family!" She cried as she turned down a final passage. The stone gargoyle at the end of the hall had never seen the ageing schoolmarm in such a state and in a panic, wisely, chose to get the hell out of her way.

She took the steps three at a time as she bounded up the emerging spiral staircase. She burst into the room, nearly knocking Fawkes the phoenix from his perch, and leapt to embrace the venerable old Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Albus Dumbledore was shocked to say the least. He'd never seen Minerva in such a state before, she was as giddy as if she'd been hit with a dozen cheering charms and babbling like crazy. It took him ten minutes to calm her down to the point where she wasn't trying to hug him, dance and laugh all at once, then another ten to finally get the story out of her. She'd noticed that Harry's name had still been on the roster for this year's attendees, which meant that he was alive and not killed in the magical explosion that devastated Privet Drive all those years ago, she had used the charmed quill to write everyone's letters but saved his for last and then personally followed the owl sent to deliver young Mr. Potter's letter. The stories of a strange new continent intrigued him but to hear of Harry was the most important at the moment.

"...and then he was there pulling his brother out of the cliff face and the old man who leads the place gave them a stern talking to in their funny language and then they went home and he has a home, Albus, a proper one not like the horrible muggle place you sent him to and a family, I checked, they have been recognised by Magic, he has a brother, and the leader of the village is their guardian and he's also been recognised, that's why the owl delivered it to him instead of Harry, oh you should see him, Albus, he's happy and safe and loved and he looks so much like James and then I apparated here as quickly as I could to tell you and..."

Caught up in the moment, McGonagal leapt at Albus for another hug before jumping back and running out of the room with a cry of "I'm gonna go tell everybody! James and Lily's son is alive, happy and well! HAHA!"

Albus was still stood there five minutes later when the house elves came to tidy up in their discreet, secretive way. In fact it took the squawk and trill of Fawkes in a panic to revive him.

Feeling much better the old headmaster sank heavily into his chair, still deep in thought. He'd spent the past few years blaming himself for the Potter boy's death. First he'd blamed himself for the death of Lily and James, for not insisting that he be the one to hide them with the Fidelius spell. Then he'd blamed himself for putting the boy in what had turned out to be, after reviewing the memories of the Dursley family, an extremely abusive household. He'd even been called out there at least once a year to heal the boy, his beatings had gotten so bad! Childish accidents indeed! Damned prejudiced muggles could have given Tom a run for his money in the old days before the little swine had rediscovered the Cruciatus curse. He should have seen! Children did occasionally run away from home, but Harry had run off nearly a dozen times. He'd kept breaking the compulsions not to, even with his magic bound! The bindings! Sweet Merlin, the boy had to have three separate bindings placed on his magic, just to get him down to an acceptable level to pass as normal, three! Dumbledore himself had only had two placed on his core as a child and the Potter boy needed three! Then there were the ward stones. The only way he could keep Lily's sacrificial protection from fading had been to establish it as a ward but then those had failed and he'd only just managed to get the ward stones set up in time to maintain them. Harry had to have them implanted within himself for them to absorb the boy's power but not only had he overloaded the wards he'd fully charged the stones to the point where they were self replenishing their own power, even with his magic bound! He'd not only managed to fill a ward stone with enough power to run the strongest blood protections known to wizard kind, but he'd filled them up at a rate of one a month!

Then came the accident, or rather the assault as he'd seen from Vernon Dursley's memories, that had ended with a mile wide zone of suburban housing magically devastated, centring on Privet Drive, and Harry Potter vanished into thin air, supposedly dead. Now he was alive, happy and should, if he was anything like his father, be causing as much havoc and uproar as physically possible now that he was out of that horrible place. The horrible place that he, Albus Dumbledore, the supposed Leader of the Light, Champion of Good and all those other titles the newspapers gave him, had kept Harry in!

It was all a disaster. He'd hoped a muggle family would keep Harry normal, being just another child to them and not a world-famous destroyer of dark lords. He'd wanted a good, polite and normal boy he could advise and eventually work with to together turn the magical world towards a more prosperous future. Being muggle-raised would have help enormously as well to bring some modernisation to the medieval magical world. His Muggle Studies professor still referred to electricity as "'lekticky" for Merlin's sake! The world he lived in was stuck in a rut and he'd turned his greatest hope and ally for the future, the Boy-Who-Lived with his prodigious fame and public good-will, into someone who would regard him as an enemy to be feared. Harry wouldn't see him as a kindly and supportive Headmaster, he'd see him as the manipulative old bastard who'd kept him imprisoned and tortured his entire early life. Harry would be against him every step of the way!

Harry probably wouldn't even want to return to Britain! He had, according to Minerva at least, everything the boy could want, even magical training, if that walking on vertical surfaces thing was anything to go by. Harry would stay in his new home and he, Dumbledore, would be stuck in the decaying rut that was British magical society until the next massive wave of political imbalance or public emotional surge could lend him the support to push through his futuristic (in magical terms) ideals. He'd only had to wait fifty years for the last one to deliver him an infant, how long could it be before the next one came around?

Albus Dumbledore nearly wept openly for the first time in many years, Fawkes' song the only thing preventing it. He just sat there and stared at his desk. He didn't even notice when the house elves returned to light the fireplace and the lamps, instead nodding off in his chair as Fawkes sat quietly on his shoulder occasionally cooing in soft tones.

Meanwhile in Konoha...

"I'm not going back there!"

"It's a chance to learn new skills and abilities we don't have access to here."

"I don't care, I refuse to go within a million miles of the place!"

"You probably have things there that belong to you."

"I will not be going anywhere near that manipulative bastard!"

"Please? For me? I'll go with you to make sure you're alright."

"No."

"Damn it Harry, you're going to the academy and you're asking Iruka for those scrolls he promised us!"

"Fine. Stupid pushy brother, making me go back to school..."

A knock on the door drew Harry away before Naruto could make a comment on that last remark.

"Hello, ANBU-san, what's up?"

"Good afternoon, Uzumaki-san, the Hokage requests your presence in his office as soon as possible and also that of your brother."

"We didn't do it, whatever it was... That's not gonna cut it is it? *sigh* I'll get him."

Ten minutes later and the two boys were stood in front of the Hokage's desk. Also present were Kakashi, Sakura and the original Ino-Shika-Cho trio. The Hokage surveyed them all from behind his desk before speaking.

"I have called you all here because of a letter I received recently. This letter, and the decisions made in this room today will permanently affect the lives of everyone present today and could impact on the very future of our village as a whole."

Seeing the serious and understanding looks on all faces present, Chouza had even stopped eating his sandwich for a second, he continued, holding up the envelope and letter with Harry's name on them in green ink. "This letter was delivered to my office yesterday, despite being addressed to Harry, here. Not only is it written in English, which would have been enough to arouse my suspicion already, it was dropped off by an owl. Yes, an owl, no Naruto I was not high, I checked." Naruto shut his previously opening mouth. "I immediately called in Inoichi's team to translate for me and have since been working and planning out options on what to do with this information. Harry this letter is an invitation for you to attend a school, much like our Academy, only back in your home country. I think it would be easier if you were to read this yourself before we go any further."

The Hokage stood, holding out the letter to Harry. The boy almost had it in his hand when the door to the Hokage's office fell into the room. Harry, Naruto and Sakura froze in shock as a giant of a man, easily eight feet tall, ducked under the doorframe with a loud "Sorry abou' tha'." The adults in the room were immediately on guard as the giant turned around, lifted the door in one hand and placed it back into the frame. All the while the Hokage's secretary was yelling apologies and excuses about how she couldn't stop the man.

The newcomer turned around, saying; "Righ', now why hasn' 'arry gotten his letter ye'?" He paused as he saw Harry in the process of being handed his letter. "Ah... righ'... uh... carry on then."

Seeing no one respond and figuring that the man's accent was probably too thick even for those like Naruto or the adults who spoke English to understand, Harry announced; "He says he's here to make sure I get the letter."

"Eh?" The giant man looked confused, even as everyone else lowered their guard, even if only slightly.

Harry decided he might as well get this over with, accepted the letter from the Hokage and skim-read it. He then re-read it to make sure he wasn't seeing things. He looked up at the newcomer, who was fidgeting nervously as everyone else either watched Harry or stared at him. "Is this a joke?" Harry asked, first to the Hokage in Japanese, then to the giant man in English.

The giant responded loudly. "'Course it ain' no joke. Weren' yeh told? Yer a wizard Harry."

"A wizard?" Harry asked incredulously, even as he handed the letter to Naruto for him to read through. "A full-blown, wand-waving, potion-brewing," he glanced back at a section of the letter for a second, "broomstick-riding wizard?"

"Yep, an' a thumpin' good'n if I'm any judge."

"How?... What?... Why?"

"Well, I suppose yeh got most o' it from yer paren's, though neither o' them managed ta pop a Dark Lord as a babbie did they?" he finished with a short laugh that quickly ended when he saw Harry's further bemused look.

"Weren' yeh told anythin'?"

Harry shook his head. "Before I was rescued and brought here I didn't even know my parents names. Then I found out they died protecting me from some madman named Vold..."

"Don't say tha'!"

"Eh?"

"Never say the name."

"O-kay... Anyway, when I got here I was told that these guys had a contract to protect the Potter family, which they felt they'd failed when my parents were killed, so they tried to take me to safety but someone beat them to it and put me with the Dursleys. Then this old guy put up a barrier of some kind to stop people from getting to me and left me with those shit-bags. Since then, whenever I tried to run away the same old bastard kept turning up and took my memories away with his wand. When that stopped working he started carving my chest open and putting weird rocks in there. These guys new I was being abused so they set up a watch to keep an eye on me so when the barrier somehow broke they came in and rescued me."

"Er..." The newcomer started to look very uncomfortable for some reason.

Suddenly Inoiki piped up, a look of realisation across his face as he yelled; "It was you! You're the giant who took Harry from the house after the explosion!"

"You did?" Harry asked

"Well, I was told ta, and yeh were just a babbie and I couldn' jus' leave yeh in a blown up 'ouse, now could I?"

"You work for the old bastard who left me to be beaten and starved for the first seven years of my life?"

"Albus Dumbledore is a great man! It all must jus' some kinda misunnerstandin' 'sall."

"Albus Dumbledore, whoever he is, kidnapped me as a baby and left me in an loveless home with abusive guardians and came back regularly to heal me from the fatal beatings I received for no reason other than existing!"

Naruto piped up from where he had been reading Harry's letter; "It says here he's the head of the school you're invited to."

"What?" Harry spun around and snatched the letter back off of his brother, reading through it again.

"blah blah blah... one pet... first years not permitted broomsticks... signed Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagal on behalf of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore! That bastard's in charge of schoolchildren?"

"The Headmaster would never le' any o' his studen's come teh harm. There ain' been a single death nor disappearance in Hogwarts since he took up the job!"

Shikaku chose this moment to join in the conversation; "You say that as if it happened regularly."

The giant turned to face him and said, almost condescendingly "Well wha' d'ya expect when yeh've go' three hundred teenaged wizards runnin' aroun'? Bound teh be some acciden's in't there?"

"Like what?" Naruto asked.

"Well there were tha' time ol' Stan Hathaway go' turned inta fer'iliser when 'e go' 'is Charms NEWT spells mixed up, he mixed up the words o' one spell wi' the movements o' another or sommat like tha' and no-one could figure 'ow teh change 'im back."

Harry cringed at the thought, "So he ended up feeding some plants?"

"Nah, Perfesser Sprout buil' the lad a nice compost 'eap round back o' greenhouse nummer three. 'E's bin there forty years or so now an' nowts worked on 'im bu' no-one 'as the 'eart teh get rid o' 'im."

After this highly disturbing tale the conversation wound down. Mostly to Harry refusing to go anywhere near the 'deathtrap-school' in question, Naruto torn between interest and horror regarding it and the giant, who it was determined went by the name of Hagrid, trying to convince the boy to come.

Eventually Hagrid had to leave, muttering something about flesh eating slugs and salamanders, escorted by some ANBU until he left the village.

After going over everything they had learned with the non-English speakers of the group they all settled down for an impromptu discussion. Harry was adamant that he wouldn't be going. Naruto, the Third and Shikaku all argued that it would be a great way to learn a whole new set of skills that would not only be useful but completely unknown amongst the elemental nations. Everyone else seemed on the fence, believing it either to not be their place to say or thought that if Harry were to go then he should at least go under escort or with some other kind of protection.

About half an hour later the consensus was that Harry should be given time to think about what to do before they made any sort of response. They had to cut the meeting short because the two boys were expected at the hospital for their chakra pathway tests. Upon leaving the Hokage tower they met up with Haku, who was waiting for them on the way.  
"So, what's the old man want?" She asked.

"Apparently I've been enrolled in some academy in Britain by my parents before they died and they want me to start this September." Harry told her.

"So right after the chunin exams? You gonna go?"

"I don't know, the guy who runs the school is the guy who made my life hell back before I came here. Add to the fact that it's an incredibly dangerous place to be in from what we've heard then I don't really want to be anywhere near the place."

"How dangerous can a school be?" Haku asked incredulously.

"It's a school for wizards." Harry let that sink in for a moment.

"So you're a…"

"Yep."

"BWAHAHAHAHA." Cue five minutes of Haku bawling her lungs out.

"Hey," Harry protested, "Aren't you supposed to be supportive or comforting or something."

Haku straightened from her brief lapse into hilarity and sarcastically replied "Oh, please Mr. Magician, don't put a curse on me… I'll be good."

Cue Naruto's intense bout of giggling.

"So how do you know this all isn't some kind of elaborate prank?" Haku asked when everyone had calmed down.

"Well, aside from the fact that the Hokage was the one who started it, the three jounin who were also present and the English speaking giant who turned up at the start of the discussion demanding to know why I hadn't gotten my letter of acceptance… I'd have to say it was the giant pointing his pink umbrella at the Hokage's hat filing cabinet and making it fly that really convinced me."

"… This is starting to sound like the time Zabuza-sama ate those weird mushrooms in Rice Country. He went missing for two days and came back talking about man sized turtle ninjas training under a giant rat and being at war with shadows." Haku deadpanned as they approached the doors to the hospital before turning a concerned look on the two boys, "Look we're here now, when you get finished ask if they can do a blood test on you two just to make sure there's nothing wrong."

"Hey, what happened to Zabuza after he got back from the weird mushroom trip?" Naruto asked as they were about to split up.

"Nothing much," Haku replied, "he lay in bed for a few days mumbling about stuff and destroyed the paper shredder for some reason when we left."

A/N: I've seen many fics that have the evil dark lord Dumbledore as the ultimate villain because of things like Sirius' arrest, placing Harry with the Dursleys, Hogwarts staff being mostly incompetent, keeping Snape defended and not revealing his plans. Either that or he is the kindly, if a bit potty grandfather figure he portrays himself to be. However I have yet to see an instance where Harry figures out the 'evidence' of Dumbledore's dark ways, mounts a secret campaign against him, but all along the old man actually IS just a potty old grandfatherly figure, trying to do his best by the world. I see a fair amount of potential for humour in this if I get it right. Please bear with me.

A/N2: Oh and REVIEW! 


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